


blue-grey

by h_lovely



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Adulthood, Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Financial Issues, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Misunderstandings, Self-Doubt, Slow Burn, but also drama, romantic comedy tropes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:19:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28479795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h_lovely/pseuds/h_lovely
Summary: Matsukawa stares at him, equally shocked but doing a far sight better at reining it in. He’s broader and taller, but save for the glasses and the new chiseled angle to his sharp jaw, he’s just the same as the last time Hanamaki had seen him all those years ago.
Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro/Matsukawa Issei
Comments: 44
Kudos: 71





	1. prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! I offer you nothing more than all of my usual and predictable tropes.
> 
> This fic is somewhat loosely inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion, but no prior knowledge of that is needed to enjoy this AU. All I ask is that you mind the tags because this one is not going to be for the faint of heart. The first chapter acts as prologue with the main story beginning in chapter two.
> 
> I love hearing from you all, so if you can leave a kudo or comment just know it is very much appreciated. Enjoy.

Hanamaki Takahiro loves the ryokan in springtime. 

His mother always orders plenty of hanami dango and sakura mochi from the local shop and the trees that line the front drive always smell so lovely when their buds start to burst in the warming sun. The temperature outside grows less and less cold which means Hanamaki can wear fewer and fewer layers and before long he’ll be able to run barefoot in the soft green grass that grows up the steep banks of the river. 

Springtime also means more visitors and more visitors means more work, but his parents are always happiest when the rooms are all full and the kitchens hot and bustling, so Hanamaki really doesn’t mind. After all, he and his older sister Tamiko always get first dibs at the leftovers and sometimes even an extra coin or two when they’re tending to the baths. 

But what Hanamaki might like the best about springtime in Sakunami is getting to spend any extra time during their vacation with his very best friends in the entirety of the world, or at least Miyagi prefecture. 

“Hurry up, we’re going to be late!” Oikawa screeches up ahead, the rapid pattering of their feet pounding echoes up off the sidewalk as fast as their legs can take them.

“You can’t be late if it’s a surprise visit,” Hanamaki calls back, careening around an older couple to catch up with his cousin, hurrying to elbow him in the side.

Oikawa hits back without hesitation, scowling over at him with red cheeks. His brown hair flops over his forehead with every bounding leap they take and Hanamaki’s glad Tamiko had clipped his own as short as she had at the start of their spring vacation. 

Behind them, a pair of hands slap into their backs sending them both nearly tumbling to the ground and Hanamaki barely catches himself before he can skin his knee— _again_. He’s not eager to get another lecture about recklessness from his mother. 

Oikawa turns with his tongue out, skittering into some kind of backwards jog and Matsukawa just grins, all teeth save for a couple of gaps near the front. A car horn sounds across the street, startling them all into a jump followed closely by breathless laughter and then they’re off once again at breakneck speed down the old main road. 

Skinned knees or not, Hanamaki has never felt happier.

When they screech to a halt at their final destination, lungs greedily sucking up warm, newly damp air, Hanamaki turns to Matsukawa. “Got any money?” 

Matsukawa squints over at him. “Never,” he says with a grin. “You?”

Hanamaki fumbles in his pocket, fingers splaying over a few coins there, what’s left of his allowance and the under-the-table tips from customers that think he’s cute rather than obnoxious. “A little,” he admits slowly.

Oikawa just rolls his eyes, grabbing them both by the wrists and tugging them forward. “When have you ever had to pay at Iwa-chan’s, huh?” 

And it’s true, Hanamaki isn’t sure he can remember a time when Iwaizumi’s mom hadn’t smothered them in affection and extra helpings of saucy, slurpy udon. But lately his father has been teaching him a little more about the art of business (not that Hanamaki has much interest in anything other than the art of, well, just _art_ ) but he doesn’t think his parents would quite approve of him always mooching food for free—even if it is from one of his very best friends. 

“C’mon,” Matsukawa says, pulling out of Oikawa’s grip only to transfer over to Hanamaki so they can both do double duty of dragging him through the restaurant’s front door. 

The place is small, but packed as always. The low ceilings and wood paneled walls always remind Hanamaki of a cave, but a homey cave with hand painted tapestries and yellowing family photos tacked up all over. Scattered about are low tables and comfortable cushions and mats that sometimes Iwaizumi-san lets them use for fort building purposes on Sunday mornings when the place is closed. It always smells of dashi and grilled beef and the cypress incense burning in the corner; a comforting blanket of familiarity. 

It’s a place Hanamaki likes a lot, even if sometimes he feels like an alien stepping through a portal into another dimension when he’s there—but he seems to feel like that a lot, and most of the time that’s half the fun, anyways. 

The three of them skitter around full tables, under and around groups of laughing, half-drunk men and over puddles of sticky beer foam and empty dishes all the way to the back, to the kitchen door half covered with a simple linen overhang that blows every few seconds with the oscillating fan that Hanamaki knows is drilled into the wall over the stove. 

Oikawa knocks a little fist into the doorframe and a moment later a woman with soft brown eyes and golden skin and dark hair tied up with a pretty red scarf leans out under the curtain to greet them. 

“Hello boys,” Iwaizumi’s mother says with a knowing smile, heart-shaped and warm like a hug. “Hajime’s in the back—if you help unload the new stock, I’ll have extra sticky chicken and yaki udon when you’re through.” 

They answer in a resounding trio of agreement and thanks before they scurry past her legs through the kitchen and into the dusty storeroom. There they find a grunting Iwaizumi, hefting oversized jars of umeboshi onto an empty shelf. 

“Oi,” he grunts out when Oikawa tackles him around the middle with a gangly armed hug. “Tooru—get off me!” 

But his protests, as usual, go unheeded and before Iwaizumi can say anything more he’s got two other bodies practically dragging him to the ground. “We missed you, Iwa-chan,” Hanamaki giggles, dramatically syrup-sweet and a perfect imitation of Oikawa’s familiar croon. 

“I just saw you yesterday,” Iwaizumi says, half a growl and half a whine, but secretly full of happiness to see them all anyways. 

With four sets of hands instead of one, the shelf-stocking goes fast and relatively smoothly. When they poke their heads back into the kitchen, Iwaizumi’s father is there and, with a quirk of a thick brow, he follows them back into the closet for inspection. 

“Tip-top work, as expected,” he announces, broad shoulders straight and strong as he observes them with military strictness. 

Iwaizumi’s face goes ruddy when his father’s large palm ruffles through his unruly hair, but afterwards they’re presented with a drool-worthy spread of the best home-cooked food in the whole district for their trouble. 

Hanamaki eats to his heart’s content, ignoring the little nagging voice in his head about portion-control that sounds strangely like his mother. Beside him, Matsukawa steals a slice of stir-fried mushroom from his bowl with his chopsticks and Hanamaki retaliates by swiping a bite of tender barbecued beef. Across the table Oikawa and Iwaizumi argue over something or other that won’t be important tomorrow and Hanamaki settles back in his seat, full and warm and utterly content.

————— ❀ —————

When Hanamaki is a little bit older and a little bit wiser, the things his mother and father used to try to explain to him start to click in. It’s not that he agrees with them, but he understands them better on a fundamental level—and Hanamaki doesn’t exactly like that, but he’s learning to live with it regardless. 

“What will people think if they see you running around with boys like that?” his mother asks, pouring his cup of tea with practiced precision. “Hanging around in the alley and looking like trouble.”

“The street beside Lawson isn’t an alley,” Hanamaki argues, used to this circular logic and becoming very adept at circumnavigating his mother’s weird dramatics. 

They’re currently sitting in the front room at the kotatsu that Hanamaki is only allowed to sit at in moments like this when he’s having tea with his mother and occasionally (usually) being gently reprimanded for things she thinks he’s doing. 

He’s not, really. Hanamaki doesn’t consider buying honey butter chips and calpis and sitting on the curb with Matsukawa ‘looking like trouble,’ but his mother has always been the hardboiled type. 

He gets it most of the time. His mother has appearances to keep up, after all, with the business and her ego and the way her own father nags every time he comes to visit from Tokyo. Their ryokan is the best, most luxurious (and overpriced) place in the resort district, but Hanamaki’s never agreed that it makes his _family_ the best. 

If Hanamaki had his way he’d go to school and volleyball practice, take care of his chores cleaning the baths or helping the kitchen staff, and then spend his every last free moment ‘looking like trouble’ with his friends. 

But, instead, he’s here listening to his mother’s thinly veiled scolding while Tamiko sits at an adjacent table with her tutor (who Hanamaki knows for a fact is secretly her boyfriend) pretending to be bad at mathematics. 

“I’ve been thinking about universities that would be good for you.” His mother changes the subject abruptly, smiling at him hopefully though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“I’m only in first year,” Hanamaki complains, though it does absolutely no good at all. 

“These are things you have to start thinking about early,” his mother explains primly. “Your sister’s barely scraping by with her entrance exams because she waited too long to start studying.” 

Hanamaki doesn’t miss the way Tamiko’s shoulders tense, the words spoken low but not softly enough for her not to hear the obvious jab. Hanamaki’s own jaw flexes, but Tamiko looks up with a pointed gaze before he can spout anything disrespectful in response. 

His elder sister had always taken the brunt for him, even if his parents always held the best of intentions. Hanamaki knows they always expected more from him and despite what was said, Tamiko always took it, never wanting Hanamaki to fight her battles for her. 

They were loved of course and surely the two wanted for nothing—but sometimes Hanamaki liked to pretend that he wasn’t at all related to his parents. That maybe, on the rare times he was allowed to spend the night at Matsukawa’s or Iwaizumi’s or even his uncle’s place, that he belonged to them somehow, that he’d absorb into their families by overnight osmosis or something. 

It never worked, of course. But it was alright to dream about. 

Later, after he’s made it through dinner and his father’s only slightly more tolerable topics of conversation, Hanamaki finds a moment to sneak out the back entrance and down past the steaming onsen to the little dirt path that meanders along the river. He’s finished his homework and extra studies so his parents can’t scold him for more than going out later than he aught to on a school night, but Hanamaki doesn’t much care. He needs to feel the snap of spring greenery beneath his feet and the cool breeze along the ache of his shoulders that seem to feel heavier with each passing day. 

He knows this path well, figures he could navigate it blind if need be, and before long he’s coming up on the crop of trees outlining the little play park he used to visit when he was too small to care about university entrance exams and societal importances. 

When he arrives, Matsukawa is waiting as though he just _knew_ and all the weight is lifted off of Hanamaki’s shoulders like it were nothing more than condensation to begin with. 

“Hey,” Matsukawa says and it feels like some sort of secret, like a magic spell between them that’ll only work if the words are spoken in order, just right.

“Hi,” Hanamaki says back, just like always, and the spell envelopes them in its shimmering, magical warmth.

Together they amble over the soft grass to the swings, legs too long to do anything but drag until they pump them fast enough to feel like they’re practically flying. But tonight they just sit, swaying a bit with the breeze, because Hanamaki doesn’t really feel like flying right now. He feels grounded in a way, feet cemented into the ground, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to fly again. 

“My mom tried to ban me from our Lawson trips today,” Hanamaki murmurs after a while. His cheek is squished against his fist where it’s wrapped so tight around the swing chain there’s sure to be a mark.

“Scandalous,” Matsukawa scoffs without hesitation. “How does she expect you to get your daily sugar fix?” 

Hanamaki grins, unable to hold it in. “I know, right?” 

“You going to Saturday practice this week?” Matsukawa asks then, much more smooth at changing the subject than his mother is. 

“Of course,” Hanamaki nods, kicking his toe into the dirt below them. “I wouldn’t hear the end of it from Oikawa if I didn’t.” 

“His sister’s in town I thought?” 

“Even his sister and new baby nephew couldn’t keep Oikawa away from volleyball practice.”

They laugh at that, but it’s true. While baby cousin Takeru was arguably a top-tier adorable baby, Oikawa would probably rather bring him along, stroller and all, than miss a chance to step on the court. 

Matsukawa makes a considering noise. “Your uncle would probably agree,” he adds.

“You’re right,” Hanamaki snickers, because knowing Oikawa was knowing his father—that apple certainly didn’t fall far. Hanamaki wonders vaguely if people think about he and his father in the same way.

He really hopes not. 

They sit like that for a while longer, swinging but not swinging, and just enjoying the silence and each other’s company. Hanamaki thinks if he had to give up everything else he loved about his life save for one thing, it might just be simple moments like this. 

“Oh I almost forgot, Iwaizumi invited us to dinner tomorrow night,” Matsukawa says after some undetermined amount of time. He’s staring up between the shadowy tree-branch claws, up at the silver speckles watching over them. 

“I’ll tell my mom I’m staying late at cram school,” Hanamaki decides without much hesitation.

Matsukawa turns to him then, searching his face for something Hanamaki is determined not to let him find. “You sure?”

“Of course,” Hanamaki nods. “I wouldn’t miss Iwaizumi-san’s cooking for anything in the world.”

_I wouldn’t miss another night spent with you by my side,_ he adds in his head with some sort of guilty, longing feeling he doesn’t quite understand welling in his chest.

For a second Hanamaki thinks Matsukawa might argue further, but instead he just nods like maybe he really does understand. And Hanamaki hopes he does—but also hopes that he doesn’t.

————— ❀ —————

Hanamaki had grown up with Oikawa, but they’d always been more like brothers than cousins. Their fathers are brothers that act maybe more like cousins and that irony isn’t wasted on Hanamaki’s understanding of their family dynamics. 

His mother and his aunt don’t really get along. This isn’t all that surprising when one factors in that Hanamaki’s mother comes from old money and had only agreed to move to Sakunami for the handsome attentions of a man who cared about good business more than anything, except maybe her. And Hanamaki’s father isn’t a bad guy, he’s sometimes stingy and all the times busy, but he’s soft spoken and never mean if a little neglectful. 

Hanamaki’s uncle, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. He’s the older of the two brothers, but he’d shirked his duties taking over the family owned ryokan in order to chase his dream of playing professional volleyball for FC Tokyo and later the Japan National team. Hanamaki had always looked up to him, placing him on that very special pedestal parents are supposed to go on when his own never seemed to quite fit right. 

“Nice course,” his uncle says as the ball pounds into the dirt on the other side of the net. “Try getting your jump a bit higher, Hajime—and Issei, makes sure you’re matching your block to the spiker’s hitting hand, okay?” 

They’re in Oikawa’s backyard, which had more-or-less been retrofitted as a volleyball court for as long as Hanamaki could ever remember. Currently he and Oikawa are sat on the back steps while Iwaizumi and Matsukawa run through block and spike drills. They sip on ice cold bottles of Pocari Sweat and occasionally heckle their friends from afar. 

“I almost forgot to tell you—Shizu-chan’s friend was asking about you the other day,” Oikawa says sitting up to adjust his knee pads. “I told her you don’t really date, but _maybe_ I’d mention her to you in conversation.”

Hanamaki frowns. It’s not the first time Oikawa’s dragged him into this sort of conversation before, but it never seems to get less convoluted. Hanamaki doesn’t like talking about girls or dating or otherwise and maybe that makes him the odd man out, but it’s still the truth just the same. 

“Why would you say that?” he asks with a huff. “It makes me sound like a real asshole.”

“It’s called playing hard to get,” Oikawa says like it’s obvious. “Also, girls really go for the enigmatic type.”

“Like you would know.” Hanamaki rolls his eyes, letting them settle somewhere between the net and Matsukawa’s broad, middle-blocker palms. “You’re not even close to enigmatic. You have a new girlfriend each week, there’s no mystery there.” 

“Makki, don’t be rude,” Oikawa grumbles, but he brushes the jab off so easily almost as though he’d been prepared for it. “So, should I tell her you’re interested?”

Hanamaki pauses for a minute, pretending like he’s mulling it over for Oikawa’s benefit even though really he’s thinking about the dirt fluttering up around Matsukawa’s feet every time he jumps, the layer of dust clinging to his once white trainers. Hanamaki can still remember the day he’d bought them, nearly a year ago with a special birthday allowance from his grandparents. Hanamaki had never bought shoes with his own birthday allowances because his mother always seemed to buy the latest style each season without waiting for Hanamaki’s old ones to grow worn. 

“No,” Hanamaki says after an appropriate amount of false consideration. “I mean—you were right about the whole no dating part at least.”

It’s Oikawa’s turn to frown this time, though it’s rather more like a pout. “Come on, Makki—I’ve been trying to set you up for ages.”

“Believe me, I am aware,” Hanamaki mutters. “I’ve got too much on my plate as it is, I don’t need a girlfriend to add to the mix.”

It’s a good enough excuse and this way Hanamaki doesn’t have to broach any heavier subjects than maybe school and parental pressure. He doesn’t want to disappoint Oikawa too much, but recently he’s starting to think he’s not ever going to want a _girl_ friend at all. 

“My mom told me you’re applying for university in Tokyo,” Oikawa says, taking the bait. “Are you going to play volleyball?”

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Hanamaki shrugs and it’s not exactly a lie, but maybe more like a half-truth. “Probably not though. Doesn’t really add much to a business resume.”

“Business?” Oikawa parrots. His long fingers tap along the half-empty bottle in his hands, nearly meeting the beat of Hanamaki’s rapidly pounding heart. “I thought you’d study art or something.”

“Yeah,” he says, half-hearted because he really doesn’t want to be having this conversation anymore. “But that’s sort of a frivolous degree, y’know?”

He can feel Oikawa’s stare boring into the side of his face, a familiar sensation. They’d grown up together, after all, and if anyone knew Hanamaki the best it was Oikawa. And on top of that, he’d always been too good at dissecting people, weeding out insecurities; a microscope of human emotions and here Hanamaki sits like the next prepared slide in his research lab. 

“Now you just sound like auntie,” Oikawa says after a long, tense moment. “I’m thinking about going to university too—unless I get scouted first.” 

Hanamaki takes a breath, not really sure when his lungs had stopped functioning. He’s relieved that Oikawa isn’t choosing to poke and prod any deeper, but he knows too that this conversation won’t be easily forgotten, just stowed away for another, more appropriate time and place. Hanamaki feels strangely thankful and anxious all at once. 

“Of course you will,” he nods, because no deflection would be complete without feeding Oikawa’s massive ego. “I swear I’ve already seen a dozen scouts at every one of our games.” 

Oikawa grins, pleased. “Well, I am good, aren’t I?”

Hanamaki’s about to respond with something a bit more scathing to knock him back down to a more bearable peg when a pair of hot, sweaty hands reach into his own to filch his mostly full drink. 

“Oh no, I wasn’t going to finish that, but thanks for asking,” Hanamaki snarks, tilting his head back to fit Matsukawa with the brunt of his smirk. 

“You’re welcome,” Matsukawa responds genuinely before taking a long, long drink. 

And—Hanamaki thinks back to what Oikawa was saying about playing hard to get and he wonders if Matsukawa follows that same line of thinking or if he’d be the blunt, honest type. Hanamaki’s not sure, mostly because he can’t think of much else other than the bob of Matsukawa’s throat when he swallows, the dip of his collarbones where they catch the gold light of the setting sun off the house’s west facing windows, the square edge of his jaw that seems to grow sharper every day.

Yeah, he thinks, the girlfriend thing is probably (definitely) off the table.

————— ❀ —————

The ryokan is almost always busy. 

It’s not always full, but it is always busy. From tourists to locals, visiting salarymen to the occasional high society guest, there never seems to be much of a lull. The kitchen is always warm and overflowing with delicacies and overpriced alcohol and the onsen and baths kept in pristine order.

It’s good for the local district, his father often likes to say, but Hanamaki is keen enough to know he means it’s good for them and their business and their bank account. 

Tonight his parents are entertaining some close family friends—or at least, they’d introduced them as such to he and Tamiko even though Hanamaki is certain he’s never even heard their names before now. They’re from the big city, which could mean a lot of places, but Hanamaki knows by the twinkle in his mother’s eye that it means Tokyo, specifically Aoyama where his grandfather still lives cooped up in a high rise much too big for one person alone. 

The two women are somewhat cordial, thanking Hanamaki and his sister when they serve them tea from the gold tin his mother keeps on the highest shelf of their personal pantry, but their husbands are too engrossed in whatever stock and bond sort of conversation they’re having to so much as look up from their smoke-trailing cigarettes. 

It doesn’t take Hanamaki long to decide that he doesn’t like them, company or not.

Luckily, his parents don’t seem to expect them to stick around once dinner’s been served and so he and Tamiko are able to snatch bowls of miso soup and rice from the kitchen to eat on the back porch that overhangs their immaculate green garden. 

“We’ve never met those people before, right?” Hanamaki asks, sitting down with crossed legs.

“Nope,” Tamiko answers, with a pop of her lips. “And I’m pretty sure mom and dad barely even know them too.” 

_It’s all about who you know_ Hanamaki can remember his father telling him once in a reverent tone that sounded more like a sermon than simple conversation. He supposes in some aspects that’s probably true, but Hanamaki doesn’t think he’ll ever feel the need to treat people he barely knows like close family friends. 

“Good, at least I’m not crazy,” he chuckles, tucking into his food while it’s still warm. 

“Oh, you’re still crazy,” Tamiko says, sticking a pointed elbow in his side. “Just not about that.”

Hanamaki wastes no time in elbowing her right back, still careful of his soup. “Shut up,” he grumbles, but it’s steeped in affection just the same. 

Hanamaki and his sister get along better than most siblings their age—they don’t often bicker and when they do it’s usually in the form of gentle ribbing or equal opportunity teasing. He likes Tamiko a lot, is grateful to have her warm presence always close, especially considering he doesn’t always get all the warmth he craves from anyone else in their little, closed-off family. She’s a good sister and a good friend and Hanamaki wouldn’t trade her for the world. 

“So, I wanted to tell you,” Tamiko says after they’ve devoured most of their rice and slurped up the last rich dregs of broth. “I’ve decided to study at Sendai University—I can take the train there for classes and live at home and still help out around here.” 

“Really?” Hanamaki swallows his mouthful with some difficulty. “Mom’s letting you do that?”

“We don’t need to get into the details,” Tamiko answers and that in itself is explanation enough. “Besides, I want to study education and I don’t need to go to some fancy, expensive school for that kind of degree. I’d like to find work around here after I graduate anyways.”

“Yeah, okay,” Hanamaki says because he’s gotten pretty good at knowing when to press and when to let things lie. “Well that’ll be good—but I had been looking forward to moving into your room when you left.”

“Brat,” Tamiko glares but it’s fond enough. “Look, I know mom’s been hounding you about university too—but I want you to know that you can make your own decisions.”

“I get that,” Hanamaki shrugs. “But, I dunno, Tokyo wouldn’t be so bad. It’d be less boring than it is around here at least.”

“I like it here,” Tamiko says, looking up to glance around the garden. It’s just dark enough for the lush grass to look rather more like an inky, bottomless pool than a lawn. “Not here-here—but Sakunami, y’know?”

“I know,” Hanamaki replies and thinks he knows exactly what it is that she means. “I don’t mind it here either, not really.”

“But Tokyo would be good too,” Tamiko hastens. Between them the bowls are scraped clean and while Hanamaki’s stomach is full, his body still feels wanting. “What about your friends—have they thought about what they’ll do after graduation yet?” 

Hanamaki thinks about that for a second, too caught up in the actual question to feel surprised by its abruptness. He and Tamiko are close enough in age and friendliness that she gets along with his friends just as well as he gets along with hers. 

“We haven’t really talked about it a whole lot,” Hanamaki answers slowly after some contemplation. He’s honestly surprised he doesn’t have a better answer for such a simple question. “Tooru’s being scouted, you know.”

Tamiko rolls her eyes, but her smile is genuine. “Of course, how could I not know?” 

“He’s arrogant about everything, but at least when it comes to volleyball it’s the truth,” Hanamaki mutters. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Cross my heart.” Tamiko makes an exaggerated motion over her chest. “Would you want to keep playing in university if you could?” 

Hanamaki thinks about the pleasant smack of leather against his palm, the echo of spikes hitting the floor and shoes squeaking across the court. He thinks about his cousin’s voice, encouraging in his ear when he’d asked the very same thing. 

“Maybe,” he says with some nonchalance. “I dunno, it’s fun here playing with my friends and all that. Don’t know if I’m good enough for a university team.” 

“Aw, of course my little brother is good enough.”

This in turn sets Hanamaki’s eyes rolling and Tamiko to wrap her long arms around his middle, octopus-style, and refusing to let go until he squeezes her back.

“Get off,” he grumbles half-heartedly around her cheerful laughter. “I’ll probably be way too busy with coursework to do anything else anyways.”

“That sounds like something mom would say,” Tamiko shoots back, tone nearly scolding. She releases him then if only to fit him with a more serious look. “I’m telling you—don’t let her get to you.”

“I know, I know,” Hanamaki groans. “Issei told me he’s looking into both academic and athletic scholarships.”

There’s a pause in the flow of conversation afterwards and Hanamaki’s not even really sure where those words had come from. It’s the truth, considering just the other day Matsukawa had mentioned looking up some applications—but Hanamaki can’t grasp the reasoning as to why his brain decided to spit that information into existence right now. 

Tamiko watches him for a bit, maybe able to sense his internal crisis or else just waiting to see if he’ll elaborate anymore. “Does he want to go to Tokyo too?” 

It’s once again a question that Hanamaki aught to have the answer to, but for some reason he just—doesn’t. 

“I don’t know,” he admits, feeling out of sorts. “That would be cool though, wouldn’t it?”

Tamiko grins. “Then you’d _never_ get any work done.” 

“Hey, Issei is super smart,” Hanamaki argues, fierce gaze flicking up to challenge his sister head-on. “He helps me study a lot, even if we do get sidetracked sometimes.”

“I’m just teasing.” Tamiko’s got her hands raised up in a surrendering gesture, eyes little wide with surprise. “He’s a good guy, all of your friends are.”

Hanamaki feels immediately silly for overreacting, but he thinks the nerve Tamiko had unintentionally touched has been in its rawest, most vulnerable of forms as of late.

“Mom doesn’t seem to think so,” he says before he can think to stop himself. 

Tamiko stiffens beside him and the tension grows from easy and playful to something much heavier and real. Hanamaki hadn’t meant to lead the conversation down this familiar rabbit hole, a place he tries his best to steer away from as much as Tamiko likes to steer the opposite. He doesn’t like talking about things he can’t do much to change. 

“Oh— _fuck_ what mom thinks,” Tamiko hisses, her tone nearly startling Hanamaki out of his own skin.

“ _Tamiko_ ,” he gasps and he’s incredulous as much as he is hopelessly amused. “Holy shit.”

“ _Takahiro_ ,” Tamiko gasps in a mock of his own reaction. She reaches over and pinches his arm with a toothy grin. 

Hanamaki scrambles away from her, over the glossy veneer of the wooden floor. “What? Clearly I’ve been influenced by my older sister whom I have always looked up to.” 

“Such a _dork_ ,” Tamiko laughs, her whole body vibrating with it. “No wonder you’ve never had a girlfriend.”

It takes a minute for the words to register, but when they do suddenly Hanamaki feels his whole body stiffen. It’s so stupid really, he can take a bit of gentle sibling teasing. But his jaw aches where his teeth have welded themselves together inside the sudden desert dryness of his mouth. 

Tamiko must notice right away, because she’s his sister and one of his best friends, so of course she does. But Hanamaki doesn’t want to have this conversation anymore than he wants to talk about his mother’s overbearingness or the way he feels inherently mediocre in most every expectation put upon him throughout the entirety of his existence. 

“Oh,” Tamiko breathes, easing forward with all the hesitance of a someone trying not to spook a wounded animal. “Takahiro, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay, really,” Hanamaki says, trying to back pedal as fast as he fumbling legs can take him. “I know you didn’t mean anything. It’s just—”

He chokes—something bubbling up in his throat and making his voice wobble and his words sound like a bad phone connection. He hadn’t been prepared for this, hadn’t seen it coming even if maybe he should have what with the way their conversations had been growing deeper and deeper with each day they grew older and more likely to stumble and make a mistake that might actually have meaningful consequences in their burgeoning, young adult lives.

“What?” Tamiko whispers. She shuffles forward on her knees, grabbing at Hanamaki’s hands in his lap where he hadn’t even realizes they’d started trembling. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

And he figures, maybe this is good. Maybe this is the universe telling him it’s time to start speaking things into existence. Because maybe if he says it out loud it won’t sound quite right to his ears and he’ll know it’s just a fluke, just a phase, and then everything will settle back into the normalcy his mother is always so preoccupied with. 

“Can I talk to you about something?” Hanamaki asks, voice so quiet he’s not sure it can even be heard over the coo of nesting doves in the eaves. 

“Of course,” Tamiko says sitting down far enough away to give him space, but close enough that he feels safe in her embrace. “You can always talk to me.”

“It’s just, lately I’ve been thinking,” he says, stumbling around the clunkiness of his words. “Thinking maybe—I don’t _want_ a girlfriend.”

Hanamaki wonders what Oikawa would say to that, or Iwaizumi or his uncle or his parents or those family friends that can’t possibly be family friends at all when they’d barely even registered his existence. 

Or—Matsukawa. 

“Well that’s okay. You don’t _have_ to have a girlfriend,” Tamiko answers gently. She runs a calming hand up his arm to his shoulder and then back down to start the pattern all over. “I mean you’re only fifteen.”

“No, I mean—” Hanamaki frowns because how can he say this without sounding as pathetic as he sounds inside his own head? “What I mean is—what if I don’t want a girlfriend? What if I want—what if I want a _boyfriend?_ ”

The small part of him that had thought the words might sound silly and wrong spoken aloud dies swiftly, without so much as a single argument. 

“Oh, well—then that’s okay too,” Tamiko says. “Is someone pressuring you to date? Because you shouldn't feel pressured—“

It takes a second to register in Hanamaki’s head, like there’s lag in the connection. But then—

“No, no one’s pressuring me. I mean—Tooru keeps trying to set me up, but that’s different,” he stutters out, uncertainty rising in his chest like flood waters. “But—Tamiko, did you hear what I said?”

Hanamaki’s sure his expression is one of total confusion, brows locked in a furrow and lips puffed out. But he’s sure Tamiko didn’t hear him correctly, or still doesn’t get what he’s saying. How could she, after all, since he’s too much of a coward to come right out and say things in black and white. 

“What?” Tamiko says. “That you think you might like boys instead of girls?”

“Well—yeah.”

“I heard you.” 

“And—you don’t have anything to say about that?”

“Um—okay, I have one thing to say.” Tamiko sits up straighter and Hanamaki realizes this is it, this is where he’s going to get the cold, hard, honest truth. “I support you totally, because of course I do—I’m your sister after all. And because love is love. But also—I don’t mean to freak you out, but I wouldn’t tell mom and dad just yet. Until you’re totally confident and ready to, at least.”

Hanamaki feels dizzy. Maybe that’s because Tamiko never fails to have more than one thing to actually say or maybe it’s the idea of having this conversation again not in the confines of the little cloud of safe, comforting warmth his sister always seems to carry around with her. 

“Oh. Oh yeah, I haven’t really thought about telling mom and dad,” he admits softly. “Do you think they’ll be mad?”

It’s such a loaded question Hanamaki feels weighed down by it, but he can’t help thinking that if his sister had accepted him so easily, maybe—

“I’m not sure,” Tamiko admits and her eyes are sad even if she’s trying to smile through it. “You know how traditional they are.”

It’s not a definitive answer, but Hanamaki can sense where her true feelings lie. She’s right, he thinks, in that telling them at this point, when he’s still feeling deer-legged and unsure—it probably wouldn’t do any of them any good.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, averting his gaze because it’s hard to bare much more of the sympathy she’s unintentionally radiating. “I can wait to tell them. Until I’m totally confident, like you said.”

Overhead the stars are peeking through, a thicker scattering here than in Sendai City and certainly more than a place like Tokyo. Maybe that’s a reason to like it here—not here-here, but Sakunami. It’s only a forty minute train ride into the city proper and two hours to Tokyo if his parents pay for the shinkansen. 

It’s just a matter of where he ends up sticking—and maybe who he ends up sticking to.

Suddenly, things like university entrance exams don’t seem quite so intimidating after all. 

“Takahiro?” Tamiko’s easy voice breaks through the calm silence.

Hanamaki doesn’t bother looking away from the night sky swallowing his gaze whole because he knows his sister’s looking in just the same direction as he is. “Yeah?”

“You know I love you, right? No matter what?”

“Of course. I love you too,” he says genuinely before adding, “And— _thanks_.” 

“You’re welcome, Taka-chan.”

“Ugh, please stop.”

“What, it’s cute?”

“Maybe when I was five?”

“You’ll always be my _baby brother_.”

She smothers him then, in a hug he can’t hope to escape from. And even though everything is far from settled, far from finished or solidified or complete—Hanamaki thinks he’s okay with a start like this.

————— ❀ —————

By the time third year rolls around, Hanamaki starts to feel less and less anxious about the future. This is entirely paradoxical to pretty much every other third year he knows, but Hanamaki had never minded being a little different before, so why start now?

“You’ve been accepted into two universities already, while some of us can barely scrape into one,” Yuda complains, falling face first into his economics textbook.

“What can I say? My charms are unmatched,” Hanamaki smirks around a bite of his onigiri. They’re sat in the shade of the big maple that hangs over the metal walkway up to their club room, sharing a quick snack and the usual commiserating conversation. 

“Isn’t your grandfather some rich politician or something?” says the familiar voice of one of Hanamaki’s home room classmates as he passes by their little group with the rest of the basketball team. “That probably helps.”

Hanamaki immediately tenses, ready to throw back some sort of scathing, sarcastic remark, but Matsukawa’s hand on his shoulder brings all his smoking gears to an abrupt halt.

“Don’t pay attention to them,” he says. His voice is calm and collected, but the glare he reserves for the snickering boy’s back is decidedly not. 

Hanamaki swallows, trying not to let his eyes linger too long on Matsukawa’s profile. “Yeah,” he agrees, sitting back in the grass with a thump. 

“Hey, how’s your final piece coming?” Matsukawa wonders, gesturing to the dried bits of paint crackling over Hanamaki’s hands and under his fingernails, practically a permanent fixture at this point. 

While Hanamaki appreciates the attempt at distraction, he knows those words will be floating along through his head for a long while. “It’s coming along,” he says with a grin instead of allowing his internal worries to show through and he’s rewarded with one of Matsukawa’s easy smiles in return. 

“Oi, c’mon, practice is starting,” Iwaizumi calls from above. He’s standing at the top of the stairs, hands on his hips like somebody’s father. “You’re not even changed yet.” 

“Thank you, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls as he exits the club room in his usual practice shirt, court shoes hanging from his tape-wrapped fingertips. 

“Yes, thank you Iwa-chan,” Hanamaki calls up in an exaggerated tone, voice nearly cracking with the effort. “The perfect vice to our not so perfect captain.” 

“Makki,” Oikawa scowls, stomping down the stairs. “Just for that, we’re doing extra laps.”

Hanamaki stands, hiking his bag up on his shoulder. “I don’t think that’s up to you to decide, _oh captain my captain_.”

Matsukawa chuckles at his accented english, following him up the stairs, passing by a sulking Oikawa. “You’ve been watching American movies again haven’t you?”

Hanamaki shrugs, holding the door open for Matsukawa and Yuda and a couple of other straggling second-years. “English is hard and my mom’s been threatening me with _another_ tutor,” he whines. “I’d rather learn with a side of pop culture.”

“Your mom never fails to find something new to stress you out about,” Matsukawa says, stripping out of his uniform before the door’s barely had time to close behind them.

“I’m not stressed,” Hanamaki protests, because for once that’s pretty much true. “Besides, how do you think I’ve already gotten two acceptance letters?”

Matsukawa’s quiet for a bit, pulling on his shorts and fumbling with his shirt that had been turned inside out. After he’s dressed, Hanamaki not far behind, he turns to give his fullest attention to their conversation.

“They aren’t even the schools you wanted to go to,” Matsukawa says and there’s a hint there that Hanamaki can’t quite decipher. “Do they have an art program?”

“Doesn’t matter, I’m not studying art. We’ve talked about this,” Hanamaki answers quickly because if anything’s going to stress him out right now, it’ll be another lecture of any sort, even from Matsukawa. “What about you? Heard anything back yet?”

He’s thankful that Matsukawa can read him well enough not to push any further like he’s been known to do in the past. But it’s true that they’ve already been over it, jumped through all the hoops and shared all the non-confrontational arguments plenty of times, so the topic of conversation is sort of moot by now. 

“I got offered a pretty good scholarship,” Matsukawa explains. He dips his head, stuffing his clothes in a vacant locker. “Full ride actually.”

At first Hanamaki isn’t certain he heard correctly, but when the words come back around again and fully hit him, he can’t help the way his jaw pops open in surprise.“Full ride? Are you serious? That’s awesome, Issei, why didn’t you tell me?” he exclaims, the words falling out of his mouth almost faster than he can think them up. “Where to?”

“Hokkaido University.”

Hanamaki’s eyes widen and it takes him a moment to reign in the gasp that threatens to erupt out of his lungs. Matsukawa’s own expression is entirely neutral, so much so that Hanamaki can’t even begin to tell if he’s excited by this new prospect or not.

“Oh,” Hanamaki says around a swallow. “Hokkaido. That—that’s far, isn’t it?”

It sounds so silly to his ears, the simplicity of the statement. But it’s the truth, cold black and white, and the only thing Hanamaki’s brain can seem to process at the moment.

Matsukawa nods, still not letting much of anything through. “Yeah, it is,” he agrees. 

Around them any last straggling teammates rush out of the clubroom until the front door clicks closed and it’s just the two of them, left alone in the new, stifling silence.

“And even farther from Tokyo,” Hanamaki says, a cloak of realization draping itself heavily across his shoulders. 

“Distance doesn’t mean anything,” Matsukawa answers, tone soft and far more comforting than Hanamaki thinks he even realizes. “We’ve got phones—and if I find a job I can save money to fly home and visit. Oikawa will be the hardest of all to keep in touch with—his schedule’s sure to be insane.” 

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that,” Hanamaki agrees, eyes wandering across the plane tile floor as his brain takes time to continue processing. 

Just a few moments ago he’d felt light and mostly carefree—an unfamiliar feeling he’d just barely begun to cultivate. But now—

Hanamaki feels a bit like he’s been hit by a bullet train—full speed between Hokkaido and Tokyo, but despite its smooth rails burning over two-hundred mph still an eight hour divide. 

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Matsukawa says and it’s firmer as he stands, plucking up his worn court shoes. “You’ve got the art show coming up and Spring High. Besides, what could possibly come between friends like us?”

Hanamaki’s stomach clenches painfully, a new wave of panic threatening to close around his lungs, choking. But when he looks up, all he’s met with is Matsukawa’s warm smile—not knowing, just genuine and Hanamaki forces his abrupt panic back down.

_Friends like us_ , he thinks and feels his heart twist between two very different emotions.

By the time he opens his mouth to respond, to speak something delicate and intangible into existence in this soft space between them, Hanamaki realizes the words aren’t quite ready to be shared out loud. 

Matsukawa just heads towards the door, unaware of the frostbitten numbness coursing up Hanamaki’s limbs where he stands frozen steady. 

_What could possibly come between friends like us?_

Hanamaki doesn’t want to admit anything of the sort.

————— ❀ —————

For his end of the year showcase Hanamaki’s art instructor had asked for a variety of styles, techniques, and genres. It was an evaluation as much as it was a show of hard work and dedication, of practice and emotion and, in Hanamaki’s case, a little bit of vulnerability.

The final piece he’s been working on, a large canvas filled with strokes of pretty oil paints in both broad and tender strokes, is the least technical. In fact, it wasn’t even a necessary contribution, not anything laid out in the syllabus, but a piece his teacher had allowed him freedom with, fostering him with advice and gentle critique along the way.

It’s very nearly finished, swaths of midnight blue and cool grey and depthless black. 

He’s not sure why, but somehow it reminds him of something.

Or perhaps—of someone. 

The door to the art studio, a small room capped at the end of the hall of third year home room classes, clicks open slowly, tentatively as though not to disturb. 

Hanamaki’s eyes flick behind him, a shadow in his peripheral that, for a distinct moment, feels almost exactly identical to the oil painting laid out before him. Blue and grey and depthless, calming, comforting black. 

Matsukawa comes to stand beside him, words still yet spoken, but the quiet is far from awkward; it’s natural, easy.

Almost intimate. 

When Hanamaki finally turns, brush still clutched between his fingers like an extension of the digits themselves, his gaze catches on the backlit glow of Matsukawa’s dark curls where the afternoon sun creeps amber through the room’s corner cut windows. 

When their eyes meet Hanamaki allows himself an indulgent glance into the even darker pools of Matsukawa’s hooded eyes. Depthless, calming, comforting.

“It’s beautiful,” Matsukawa says after some time. They still haven’t looked away from one another, but Hanamaki can assume well enough what he’s referring to. “Is there a particular meaning?”

Hanamaki swallows. Thinks long and hard for the best answer. Perhaps not the most honest, but the best one he can offer right here and now.

“I suppose—I just painted what I felt,” he says and it sounds far more profound than he intends, than he actually even means.

But Matsukawa just nods, entirely satisfied with an answer such as that.

Hanamaki smiles, soft and wavering, but something inside of him—the blue, grey, black—starts to solidify into something a bit lighter, a bit brighter.

And maybe he’s closer to admitting things than he’d thought.

————— ❀ —————

Time creeps along until the pace becomes satisfying, comfortable—then, like a smack in the face, it races towards the finish line without so much as a hesitant look back over weeks drowned out in seconds.

Hanamaki doesn’t feel like he’s drowning exactly, but time has become an indecisive rip tide threatening to pull him under the second his anchor gets pulled loose.

He doesn’t want to be adrift, but he also doesn’t want to be stuck still either. 

Graduation is upon them. Something that had loomed, untouchable, for so long that the idea of finally reaching it feels intangible, dream-like, and Hanamaki wonders if he’ll even be cognizant enough to remember the day after. 

The day after, when the bridge to the next part of his life will unfurl and his unsteady feet will have to walk across it to something new and unknown.

He just hopes the bridge doesn’t disintegrate behind him, leaving him helplessly stranded on the other side.

Tonight though he is firmly rooted in the now, with three warm bodies close to him on all sides, a spread of sticky, salty, saucy food before him and a ceramic flask of sake his mother would gasp over if she knew. 

It’s their last meal together as high school students and Hanamaki wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than the Iwaizumi family restaurant packed full to the brim with students and tourists and locals alike. 

He watches his cousin across from him, leaning into Iwaizumi’s shoulder with flushed cheeks just a bit too pink to be from what little alcohol they’ve actually sipped on. It was a purely celebratory thing, both the sake and the mood, but still Hanamaki can’t help but wonder at the way Iwaizumi indulges the extra affection. 

Beside him Matsukawa is a solid steady presence; shoulders just a bit broader than Hanamaki’s own now. 

All four of them fit just a little better around the squat square table now than when they were wiggly, barefoot children coming to beg leftovers off Iwaizumi’s mother. It’s always been their spot, tucked in the corner beneath a garland of paper lanterns that sprinkle candle patterns down across their skin like shimmering, fluttery glow bugs. 

Hanamaki tries desperately to snap a picture in his mind’s eye, but it’s hard to keep such a memory as fresh and crisp as the real thing. Still, he tries his best, painting the strokes out of each sound and smell and smile like he might with a brush against a freshly primed canvas. 

Later, when the plates are eaten clean and the last cups upturned, he and Matsukawa walk back towards home side by side. 

The weather’s still cool enough to warrant thick jackets, but it’s the kind of pleasant cold that pricks the cheeks and feels fresh and satisfying with each deep breath in. Even so, Hanamaki can spot a few tiny buds here and there, the promise of spring blooms and a new season to follow. 

They walk together without speaking, though the air engulfing them is anything but uncomfortable. Hanamaki feels content and safe, almost a little giddy when Matsukawa closes the already meager gap between them until their shoulders brush and bump along with their steps.

Hanamaki’s chest absolutely _aches_.

But—not in a painful way at all.

He’s not had a lot of time to really figure out what love is, but he thinks if this is the right feeling, that he could definitely love someone like Matsukawa Issei.

This is both an exhilarating and terrifying realization, but mostly hedging towards terrifying. 

He’s too young to be in love, probably. But Matsukawa makes him feel a certain way, deep down in the pit of his stomach, and even if it can’t be called love yet, it’s something. Something important. 

Matsukawa is important.

He always cheers Hanamaki on, no matter what. He’d come to his art show and littered Hanamaki with compliments and even tried to buy his final project pieces like he was some kind of big deal art collector. He knows all of Hanamaki’s favorite snacks and every time Lawson has a new seasonal edition he indulges in Hanamaki’s insistent taste test even if it’s something like chocolate dipped shrimp chips. He always seems to know when Hanamaki needs to talk and when he needs to say nothing, to just exist. 

He’s his best friend, his confidante, his—

His—

They walk on together, hands warm where they brush together with each step like a heartbeat. 

Yeah—it’s something important, Hanamaki thinks.

————— ❀ —————

On the night before Matsukawa’s flight to Hokkaido, Hanamaki invites him over for one last after-hours dip in the onsen. 

It starts out innocently enough. 

They shower off quietly, careful not to make too much mess that Hanamaki would have to tend to later. Freshly laundered towels are snatched up and only the bare minimum of lights switched on. It’s not as though they’re not allowed access, but his mother would have a fit if any unnecessary night soaks were to wake up the few _paying_ customers checked in this evening. 

Down the winding wooden staircase, in the purple velvet darkness, the steaming rotenburo looms. 

As far as outdoor baths go, this one is fairly standard. But, having been raised in its presence and his parent’s fastidious care of the place, Hanamaki has always viewed it with a somewhat skewed sense of awe. 

During the day the water gleams a clear, inviting blue—but in the evening, beneath the glisten of faint moonlight, it reflects rather more like a dark, depthless void. 

Hanamaki watches Matsukawa walk carefully to the bath’s edge, towel folded neatly, and for the first time in perhaps forever he feels the stark heat of embarrassment wash over him when he glances over the smooth planes of Matsukawa’s amber skin. 

It can’t be. It _can’t_ —

The sound of water splashing and sloshing jolts Hanamaki back to reality in time to scurry after, leaving his towel in a heap next to Matsukawa’s own. 

As always, the water wraps him in its warm embrace, soothing away any worries, and by the time Hanamaki catches Matsukawa’s heavy gaze through the darkness he feels far more relaxed than he has in a long while. 

“It doesn’t really feel real yet,” Matsukawa says, words slow and measured as they leave his steam dampened lips. 

Hanamaki nods, knowing exactly what Matsukawa means. Surreal, in perhaps more ways than one.

“Oikawa said maybe we can all come to one of his games—on a break or something,” Hanamaki replies, feeling as though it’s more of a half-hearted suggestion considering the varying degrees of finances, schedules, and distance between the four friends. 

But still, Matsukawa offers a warm grin. “That’d be cool. We can make obnoxious banners or something.”

Hanamaki can’t help the bubble of laughter in his chest, buoying him naturally closer to Matsukawa’s mostly submerged form. “I’m really going to miss you, Issei.” 

The words slip out of his mouth, unbidden but sounding so entirely right clinging to the humid tendrils of steam between them. 

“I’m going to miss you too, Hiro,” Matsukawa says, somehow so knowing and calm, as though the admission were easily something more meaningful, something just a bit more—

Matsukawa moves forward, closing the gap still left between them. The hot water ebbs around their bodies, eddying out in shimmering rings beneath the quilt of unfettered starlight. A warm hand brushes against Hanamaki’s bare waist, nearly scalding even if it’s just a light touch, just a question.

_Is this alright?_ Matsukawa’s eyes glow molten as he studies Hanamaki’s frozen features. _Am I reading into this? Are we—?_

Hanamaki plays the questions over in his own head, unable to move—stuck still as though the water surrounding them has suddenly iced over, clutching them so close together. Touching, but not. 

His mind whirs, his heart beating so fast he can hear it like a rush of blood in his ears. Hanamaki’s lips part, but that’s as much as he can allow himself to do. He can’t make the first move because what if—what if—

What if he’s interpreting this all wrong? What if he ruins the most important friendship he’s ever, or will ever, have? 

Matsukawa eases his fears away with soft, gentle movements. 

A hand brushes up over heat warmed skin, over a quivering stomach and curved ribs. Air puffs out of Hanamaki’s lungs. Water drips in a cascade of crystal sound as Matsukawa’s other hand cuts through the surface, draping slick wet appendages over the sensitive skin of Hanamaki’s nape. 

They are so close—close enough that their breath mingles with the steam into one mass of humid warmth. Hanamaki can taste it on his waiting tongue; the spring’s mineral scent, the heady amber of Matsukawa’s shampoo, the cedar pines that grow wild beyond the bath’s rocky walls.

Slowly, yet all at once, Matsukawa leans forward to press his lips to Hanamaki’s own.

Hanamaki lets Matsukawa guide him through it; hands on his hip, his neck, tilting his head just so. He opens his mouth further, teases his tongue forward against the salt of Matsukawa’s lower lip. It isn’t perfect, a little sloppy, a bit wetter than he might’ve thought. Their teeth click together once, twice. Matsukawa’s throat seizes in a soft, pleasant chuckle but Hanamaki doesn’t feel embarrassment like he thought he might—in fact, he feels nothing other than a haze of tingly, satisfying contentment. 

And then—footsteps.

The clack of house slippers down the wooden stairs, over the dark stone decking. Hanamaki pulls away startled just in time to realize he’s absolutely naked and kissing in his family’s prized onsen bath.

Not just kissing, but kissing a—

“ _Takahiro_ ,” his mother’s voice echoes through the open space, hissing up into the night sky and cutting straight through the steam like a hot knife. She’s whispering, ever the consummate host, but her tone is far from anything remotely genteel or soft.

Matsukawa’s still clutching him close beneath the water, but his fingers are trembling. 

“Come out of there,” his mother says again, this time a bit louder and still just as harsh. 

Did she know? But how? Did she _see_ —did she—? 

Hanamaki fumbles, feet slipping over the uneven stones. He scrambles out of Matsukawa’s grip, blinking through the fog of shadows and panic rising up beneath his flesh. She couldn’t possibly—but why else would she be here staring down at them like _that?_

Like—like she might be _sick_. 

His mother turns, offering them a modest bit of privacy to dry off, wrap themselves up in towels that once felt soft and luxurious but now only itch and scrape at Hanamaki’s burning skin.

Hanamaki can’t look at Matsukawa. He can’t make himself look anywhere other than at the awkward splay of his bare feet, so pale in the light of the moon, against the slick black stone floor he’s scrubbed so many times on hand and knee. 

His mother huffs out a breath, impatient maybe or else simply furious. 

Hanamaki shivers where he stands.

Matsukawa clears his throat, the deep sound rumbling through the cloying silence. “We were—”

“Issei, I think you should be getting home now,” his mother says. Her voice is softer than before, the edge still clear with no room for argument, but instead of pure disgust there’s the smallest bit of sadness in her words.

Maybe—like a goodbye.

Matsukawa hesitates and Hanamaki can feel him staring at him, gaze boring deep, but he still can’t make himself look. He can’t bring himself to move a single muscle, much less _speak_. He blinks once, twice, eyes trembling with the haze of moisture threatening to spill into his lower lashes.

“I’ll talk to you later, Hiro. Okay?” Matsukawa says, nothing more than a breath of a whisper. He’s not sure his mother could make out the words with how soft they come, clinging in Hanamaki’s ears, trickling into his subconscious; a promise. 

A promise he’s not sure he can reciprocate.

Matsukawa shuffles forward, bowing past his mother in that unfailingly polite way of his. He’ll walk up the stairs, collect his clothes, slip his shoes on in their communal genkan, and then he’ll leave through the front door. 

Hanamaki wonders if it’ll be for the last time.

“Well,” his mother snaps, forcing his vision to finally look up and meet her quivering frown. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“We—” Hanamaki stutters out, but his throat closes up around any other bit of explanation. What can he say, really? He’s not even sure himself. 

“A guest, Takahiro,” she hisses. “A _guest_ had to inform me of the inappropriate things going on in my own home.”

For a second, with the way she’s worded it, Hanamaki thinks maybe she’s just scandalized about the kissing, but then—

“And with a _boy_ ,” his mother whispers, spitting it out between them like poison. “Takahiro, how could you?”

He shouldn’t feel surprised, he shouldn’t be shaking in the wake of his mother’s scandalized expression. 

_I wouldn’t tell mom and dad just yet—You know how traditional they are._

Tamiko had been right, of course she had been. Hanamaki had been planning to wait, until he was entirely positive, until he could say with absolute certainty and mature confidence that he was—that he was—

But now, that opportunity has been stolen from his grasp by one single night, by one single miscalculated decision.

Maybe—maybe he aught to have pushed Matsukawa away. Had he been ready for that—really, truly ready?

“I—I’m sorry,” Hanamaki stumbles out. He’s not sure he actually feels remorseful, he’s not sure what emotions he feels at all in this moment, but the meager apology at least does something to smooth the angry lines on his mother’s face.

“That’s—that’s alright,” his mother nods awkwardly. “These things happen. An accident—yes, that’s it. Just an accident. Didn’t I always warn you about bad influences?”

Hanamaki’s throat seizes up, his brain conjuring up red hot anger and arguments but he can’t get them out in time before his mother his gathering him up in her arms. She pats him gently, soothing away mistaken emotion.

He chokes out a few tears, but they aren’t out of shame like she might think.

If he’s shameful of anything, it’s his own cowardice.

The sadness weighs him down, sunken to the bottom of the hot spring and drowning in regret.

————— ❀ —————

Hanamaki doesn’t see Matsukawa again.

He feels so utterly helpless and stupid and gutless, but he can’t bring himself to answer his string of phone calls the next day or the day after that.

Or the days and weeks after that. 

Oikawa tries to get it out of him once, but upon seeing Hanamaki’s red-rimmed eyes, lets it go faster than he might’ve just a few years before. Iwaizumi doesn’t ask, but Hanamaki suspects they’ve both spoken with Matsukawa and drawn their own conclusions about things.

Hanamaki aches and this time it is painful.

Time flows on like the tides, furiously consistent even in the wake of a disaster that feels like it aught to be more monumental than this.

Hanamaki throws himself into university head down, trudging on through his classes and gathering up any bits of pride or praise his parents offer up like morsels of food to a starving man. 

He aches, but it grows less painful with each new tide. 

In the end maybe it’s easier to just let things go, anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/hlovelyyy)   
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	2. flurry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hanamaki falls back into things with the ease of sinking into a freshly warm bath._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your wonderful support so far, it means the world <3

Hanamaki comes home to the ryokan in wintertime.

There’s something to be said about the feeling upon entering one’s hometown after being mostly absent for the past four years of early, burgeoning adulthood. It’s somewhat of a liminal space; things change, events occur, people live their lives even if Hanamaki himself was removed from it all, a non-witness. Like the thought of leaving your apartment unattended for a weekend’s vacation only to return to find it in just the same way you’d left it behind save a new layer of dust and the snake plant’s newly sprouted pup. 

Hanamaki has left his apartment in Tokyo behind—but not for a simple weekend’s vacation. This is a more permanent move in all aspects of the word. 

After four years of university, a degree in business and a minor in art, Hanamaki Takahiro is moving home. Back to Sakunami.

It’s a thrillingly terrifying place to be in life.

“I’m so glad to have you back, Takahiro,” his mother says, hugging him around the middle. Her newly silvered hair tickles at his nose, but the scent of her perfume is still that familiar plum blossom and the ryokan’s front sign is still the same from distorted childhood memory. 

Hanamaki is glad to be back too—kind of. He isn’t mad about it at least. It’s not as though he _needs_ to move back home; he’d had a few job prospects, an internship that could’ve gone further, but things just hadn’t felt—

They just hadn’t felt _right_.

His father wasn’t exactly thrilled about that, but his mother had offered him his old room and time to clear his head. How progressive of her, right? 

Maybe now things might be different if he was brave enough to bring up—

“Taka-chan!” 

The comforting weight of his sister draping herself across his shoulders interrupts all those silly notions and Hanamaki can’t help letting loose a snort of laughter when Tamiko practically chokes him as she threatens to hop up onto his back.

“Be careful, he’s had a long train ride,” their mother chides, but Tamiko pays her no mind, winding her arms more cautiously around Hanamaki’s neck and squeezing just this side of too-much.

“I missed you,” she whispers into his ear and Hanamaki grins, all teeth.

“You just saw me at Tanabata,” he chuckles out, wriggling around to dislodge her.

“Ages ago,” Tamiko huffs, matching his grin—dimples, freckles and all.

Their mother shuffles past them through the lobby entry hall. It’s vacant for the moment, but Hanamaki’s come home on a weekday so he supposes that’s not very unusual. His father greets him from an upholstered chair with a half-drunk glass of whisky in hand and offers to help with the bags to which both he and Tamiko dutifully decline. There’s not much baggage to contend with anyways.

“So,” Tamiko says, hefting the smaller of Hanamaki’s suitcases onto the floor beside his futon. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do now that you’re back?”

In the doorway Hanamaki startles at the question, even if his sister hadn’t meant anything acute by it. He shrugs into the door, pushing the shoji screen open a few more inches and regards her with the most neutral expression he can manage.

“Sleep,” Hanamaki says, entirely serious even if it comes off as deadpan.

Tamiko studies him for a moment, smirking. “You could take a soak,” she says, ignoring his non-sarcasm. “The onsen is totally empty right now.”

“Empty?” Hanamaki asks, trying to think back on a time when that had ever been the case.

Tamiko blinks, hesitating in her answer like she’s not exactly sure what else to say. “Well—you’ll have plenty of time for that I guess. I’ll be glad for the extra help around here anyways,” she says, circumnavigating his question with the ease of someone practiced.

Hanamaki regards her, watches the way she smooths down his freshly laundered quilt and pillow. In the corner, tucked away behind a wooden chest and an old heating blanket, he can just make out the familiar shape of an easel and a paint smattered supply box. 

He’d just assumed his mother had gotten rid of those things years ago—and yet, here they still are.

Hanamaki looks away with a jerk, doesn’t bother to inquire after his sister any further, not really thinking much of it at all either way. “Still think you shouldn’t have to do as much as you do for this place—you’ve got an actual job, unlike me.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Tamiko shakes her head, strawberry blond locks glimmering beneath the lamp light. “And anyways, you’re waiting for the right opportunity—no harm in that.”

No harm in that, huh? Hanamaki thinks there might be a little harm, considering he’s turned down a couple of high paying salary jobs in the heart of Tokyo. But—

“I think—it’ll be a nice change of pace. Being home,” Hanamaki says and for some reason it feels far more heavily loaded on his tongue than he’d intended. 

If Tamiko notices, she doesn’t mention anything.

It will be nice, being home.

Or at least—he hopes so.

————— ❀ —————

Hanamaki falls back into things with the ease of sinking into a freshly warm bath.

It’s not been so many years that he’d have forgotten how things work around the ryokan. After all, he’d visited more than once over the winter holidays and summer break when the place would be at its peak occupancy. Over the years, patronage seemed to ebb and flow but Hanamaki had never thought anything of it other than not having to clean out quite so many rooms quite so very often. 

But here he is now, the height of the winter season, and the ryokan feels practically barren with only a few steady locals perched near the kitchen window to sip away at warm nabe that’s been smuggled in through the backdoor, takeaway bags discarded with care. They’d been through a dozen chefs over the years and it seems now is another in-between time, though he’s certain that knowledge is not common among their patrons.

Hanamaki’s mother is trying her best to fill the obvious void, but he’s not sure he remembers the last time he actually saw her successfully cook anything more than rice in that kitchen. The memory is vague; a wobbly dream from young childhood. 

Still, customers or not, there’s always chores to be done. 

Tamiko is just finishing up fall term and their singular housekeeper has taken her accrued time-off, so the majority of work ends up on Hanamaki’s shoulders. Of course, he doesn’t much mind this, considering the menial labor is doing wonders for the nauseating whir of his over-active brain. 

He’s got a lot to think about, but sometimes zoning out over the repetitive motion of a soapy scrub brush is more necessary than anything else.

Despite the December chill creeping in, Hanamaki’s down to his undershirt paired with old high school sweatpants he can’t believe still fit. He hasn’t changed too much in the last four years, he thinks, but his hair’s grown a bit longer over the forehead and he’s managed to actually gain an extra two centimeters, not that he’s counting or anything. Still, he can’t help feeling small and somewhat naive—surely a side effect of being back in his childhood home. 

“Takahiro,” his mother calls from somewhere down the hall. Her voice echoes through the tiled shower room, bouncing around the wooden stools until it hits Hanamaki’s ear with a funny little inflection. “Take out the trash, would you?”

Hanamaki pushes himself up off the ground with a huffed little groan, knees cracking in places he’s not sure they ever have before. “Sure,” he calls back to her because he hasn’t had enough time to become annoyed by the constant requests just yet. 

Wriggling the rubber gloves from his hands, Hanamaki lets them slip to the floor with a wet smack before making his way towards the hall. There’s a big bag already waiting for him along with a few smaller ones he can only assume his mother wants him to fill from around the surrounding rooms. Only two of the guest rooms have even been of use this week, the others freshly clean and awaiting their next visitors, so Hanamaki skips past them and down to the small office tucked away near the front lobby. 

The room is small, even smaller than he remembers, filled with an inordinately large writing desk and a shelf filled with books he’s never seen his father actually pick up to read. The overhead lamp is an old bamboo shade that throws yellowed light over the dark wood walls and tatami floor that matches the expanse of the entire ryokan. 

Hanamaki pads towards the desk, shaking out the bag in his hand and allowing his mind to wander comfortably amidst these muscle-memory chores. He empties the small can in the corner, adjusts the crooked tapestry hanging on the wall behind his father’s chair, and reaches over the desk to retrieve the half-full ashtray there.

That’s when his eyes, very nearly blurred in absent thought, catch on something left spread out atop the leather desk mat.

It’s a ledger, the pages a bit wrinkled and so at first glance Hanamaki assumes it to be old— _years_ old perhaps. His eyes catch on his father’s scrawled handwriting; there’s a few scatterings of dark ink, but mostly the page is covered in hasty red pen. 

Hanamaki blinks, leans further over the desk to squint down at the book. The dates are from just this past month. 

Before he can even think to stop himself or gather his wits, Hanamaki’s voice croaks out a harried yell. “ _Mother?_ ” 

Trash duties forgotten, Hanamaki scrambles to gather up the ledger in his trembling hands. He stomps back into the hallway, looking in both directions before deciding to head back up towards the entrance hall. 

“Mother?” he calls out again, trying as best he can to keep his tone steady.

“What is it?” his mother answers and Hanamaki stumbles into the room to find her reorganizing the shelves of porcelain imari vases that frame the lobby’s communal television. 

Hanamaki stares at her, at her Gucci house slippers and dainty pearl necklace, trying his best to sum up just how to go about asking such a question in a refined, respectful manner. 

“Are we _broke?_ ” he sputters out instead, about as untactful as humanly possible. 

His mother turns slowly, so slowly in fact that a shiver of fear runs down Hanamaki’s spine at the length of suffocating silence it takes for his mother to fully face him with an expression of pure, unadulterated ire. 

“What?” she snaps, teeth clicking as she narrows her gaze first at Hanamaki’s round eyes and then down to the ledger he’s furiously clutching. “Where—where did you get that?” 

Hanamaki’s tongue feels shriveled in his mouth. “I—I asked you first.”

His mother’s glare turns into a condescending eye roll. “Don’t be childish.”

“Childish?” Hanamaki scoffs, a bubble of incredulous laughter tickling the back of his throat. He hefts the ledger, gesturing to his mother with its smooth leather binding. “Answer my question—are we actually in the red like this thing says?”

“Takahiro, really,” she frowns at him like she’s disappointed. “It’s not as though we’re _bankrupt_. Business always has its ups and downs.” 

Hanamaki’s brain sputters like a stalled engine. He blinks down at the ledger, taking his time to flip back open to the most current page. “This lists one, two, three—only seven overnight rooms this entire month?”

“The whole district’s been going through the same lull—”

Hanamaki’s eyes glaze over as he scans the page, flicking from credits and debits and sales to the numbers scrawled beside them. “You’ve barely had any customers—why are the food and alcohol expenditures for more than double the income you’ve made from your _seven_ overnight stays?”

“Well it was your father’s birthday at the beginning of the month—and we still have to live on something,” his mother argues, though her voice is finally starting to waver.

Hanamaki ought to feel remorse, guilt in the way he is suddenly berating her, but he can’t help the annoyance coursing stiff through his entire body. “What, did you invite the entire street and serve wagyu and champagne?” he yells out far louder than either of them seemed to be expecting.

His mother just stands there, mouth agape and staring at him in so much profound shock it’s nearly as though he’s just confessed to her after all these years that he is, in fact, absolutely and entirely g—

“What’s going on? What’s all the yelling for?” 

Hanamaki’s father trudges through the front door, slipping his hat on its designated hook and toeing off his shoes all the while grumbling that he could hear their voices practically halfway down the front drive. 

It must be comical, the way his father turns to meet both of their deer-eyed stares, but the ensuing silence surrounding them suffocates any of the amusement Hanamaki might’ve felt in some other parallel dimension to this one. 

“Hello, dear,” his mother says, her voice so even and level it’s almost as though she hadn’t been on the verge of anger fueled tears just seconds before. 

A lump of cold, hard guilt settles solidly in Hanamaki’s stomach. The thought crosses his mind to close the ledger and set it gently to the side for later discussion, but he can’t bring his hands to do anything other than clutch at the thing like if he lets loose it’ll disintegrate into nothing along with this family’s remaining finances. 

He never realized how quickly things could go from zero to one hundred quite like this.

His father nods a greeting, but it’s clear he’s a little spooked still by their odd behavior. He takes a few steps forward before realizing what it is that Hanamaki’s holding onto. “Is that—what are you doing, Takahiro?”

A tiny little flame inside of Hanamaki starts to curl into something bigger and brighter. He can feel the anger flaring out, fanned by years of inadequacy, snide comments, scoffs and stares. Maybe, he shouldn’t feel as surprised as he does at this turn of events—but a deeper part of him hopes that his parents weren’t so proud or petty that they would try to hide something as detrimental as this. 

The flame grows just large enough to lick away at the smooth bones of his ribcage, threatening to explode outwards until Hanamaki can practically taste the acrid smoke trickling up the back of his throat and onto his tongue.

“Does Tamiko know?” Hanamaki grits out and can tell the answer in an instant just by the drawn out silence. He can’t believe it, can’t believe they allowed him to remain in the dark about something as potentially jeopardizing at this. His sister shouldn’t always have to be the only one to carry such stress on her shoulders.

“When were you going to tell _me?_ ” He turns to face his father fully, chin up but eyes narrowed. “Or maybe—you weren’t planning to tell me at all?”

“Now don’t be so dramatic,” his mother says from behind. She sounds frazzled, nerves having since replaced any of her previous anger. “Like I said—times like this happen to everyone.”

“I didn’t want to burden you,” his father interrupts blatantly. “In fact, I hadn’t even been expecting you to come back home to discuss such things.”

“Of course not,” Hanamaki throws back, words dripping in sticky vitriol. “You figured by the time I had a nice salary going for myself you might be able to beg off the money little by little and I wouldn’t find out.”

Behind, his mother titters anxiously again. “So _dramatic_. Takahiro, really it’s not as bad as all that.”

“Maybe not.” Hanamaki’s fingers tighten around the ledger’s cover, his thumb threatening to tear into the open page covered in red. “But it doesn’t look very _good_ either.” 

His father steps further into the entry room, navigating around a few plush chairs and floor cushions, the communal chubadai, and over to a locked cabinet Hanamaki knows contains a myriad of liquor bottles. 

“We’re going through a rough patch,” his father explains, jangling a set of keys from his pocket. “A lull in visitors and the tourists don’t want to bother with little resort towns like ours.” 

Hanamaki watches with blurring vision as his father pulls forth a bottle of Hibiki whisky and a crystal tumbler. The image of the golden liquid sloshing carelessly into the glass amidst a conversation like this one is ironic enough to set Hanamaki’s teeth on edge.

“So cut back, sell some things off, put out a promotion once in a while,” he spits, trying and failing to keep his voice even.

His father doesn’t look up, but his brows quirk in a feigned bit of thoughtfulness before he shakes his head. “I won’t stoop to tawdry coupons and promotions.”

Hanamaki moves then, slapping the ledger down onto a side table and rattling the porcelain lamp there in the process. Behind him, he hears his mother startle and the lump of guilt in his stomach grows exponentially in size and weight.

“Oh no, wouldn’t want to look _cheap_ ,” he mutters snidely with a rough laugh. “What about when you really go under and don’t even have a roof over your heads—what then?” 

“We’ll be fine,” his father says, not looking at his son but rather studying the burning, golden liquid of his drink. “Like I said, it’s not your burden to bear.”

Hanamaki feels almost like he might tremble apart at the seams with how much he is shaking now. He sucks in a deep breath, then another, and another still. It doesn’t do much to calm the fraying in his mind, but he feels just a bit steadier, a bit less likely to fly off the handle and do something he might regret even further than the scene he’s already caused. 

Perhaps, this one time only, it’s a blessing that the ryokan has not a single registered guest on the premises. 

“But it is,” Hanamaki says and even through the consistent ringing in his ears, he sounds much calmer now. “I’m here now and it _is_ my burden to bear.”

From behind, his mother moves, her warmth coming up against his side until her hand nudges softly at Hanamaki’s still tensed arm. He relaxes beneath her touch, even if he can’t quite bare to look her in the eye just yet.

“We’ve discussed things,” she explains with an edge of hopeful optimism. “Maybe we aught to hire a financial advisor? That would be a good start, wouldn’t it Takahiro?”

“I suppose—” he nods, agreeing only because he knows she’s at least trying. “—you’ll need someone more capable than me.”

His father’s head tilts up sharply at that, fitting him with a much darker look than before. “That isn’t what your mother meant and you _know_ it.”

Hanamaki flinches, replaying the brash comment in his own head. “I—” he stumbles, realizing. “I know. Sorry, this is—I just didn’t expect this.”

“It’s really not as bad as it seems.” His mother pats down his arm again, her manicured nails trailing soothing patterns across his bare skin. “Don’t you trust us, honey?”

Hanamaki thinks on that for a brief moment and even if he aught to know the answer in an instant to a question like that—he can’t help his own hesitation.

“Of course,” he says finally after an awkwardly long beat. “Yeah, of course I do. A financial advisor—that’d be a good start, yeah.” 

But, like with anything lately, he’s really not so sure.

————— ❀ —————

Making time to see old friends had been a bit more difficult than Hanamaki had originally expected.

The train ride into downtown Sendai isn’t quite as exciting as he remembers from childhood, not nearly as comfortable as the Shinkansen to Tokyo. But the train itself is perfectly punctual and, despite the oncoming Christmas season, not terribly crowded. 

The restaurant of choice, however, is decidedly _not_. 

“Why’d you have to choose the most crowded place, huh?” Hanamaki grumbles, getting shouldered by a group of off-the-clock salarymen. 

Oikawa just side-eyes him, nose up. “When I come all this way, I want to eat my favorite barbecue—besides, _I’m_ paying so don’t complain, Makki-chan.”

Hanamaki opens his mouth to retort, but Iwaizumi beats him to it with a full-knowing smirk. “You’re here for an exhibition, don’t act like you made this trip just for _us_.” 

“ _Hajime_ ,” Oikawa complains, lips pursed. “That’s not—”

“Your table is ready,” a petite hostess interrupts politely and Oikawa’s expression morphs entirely into something handsome and charming.

“What, did he flirt to jump the line or something?” Hanamaki grumbles into Iwaizumi’s ear as they follow the two, weaving through booths and the scent of smoking coals and juicy meat. 

Iwaizumi’s dark eyes roll. “I called ahead—but don’t tell _him_ that.” 

Hanamaki just smiles, an easy sense of familiarity washing over him as they move to shuffle into a rounded booth. Hanamaki shifts to one side in order to face Oikawa and Iwaizumi across from him and catches a soft little look shared between the two that he can’t quite decipher. 

They order a variety of food, from beef tongue to pork belly and a platter of seasonal vegetables. Together they take turns layering bits of meat out over the hot gridiron nestled into the table’s center and sipping strong highballs from condensation chilled mugs. 

It’s pleasant and easy, like no time or space at all has passed between them even if the last four years had tried to ensure much the opposite. 

“So how are things going—being back home?” Oikawa asks after half their plates are stacked at the end of the table.

It’s not the first time he and Hanamaki have spoken about it, but that had been a while ago now when Hanamaki had still been in his minuscule Ikebukuro apartment, the idea of moving back to Sakunami more of an abstract thought than reality. 

So it’s not unexpected, the question—but Hanamaki can’t help the way his stomach tenses up as he considers the best way to answer.

“Uh—” he begins, ineloquent. “Did you happen to know that my parents are buried in a mountain of debt?” 

Almost instantly Oikawa’s eyes go wide, but Hanamaki knows him well enough to read between the lines; it’s not shock, but perhaps more along the lines of guilt at being caught out on something. 

Of course. He should have known—

“ _You_ know too?” Hanamaki finds his voice raising without restraint as his cousin just continues to stare, round-eyed. “Am I the only one in this entire goddamn family that’s been left out of the loop?”

Despite the privacy curtain half enclosing their booth, some staff and other patrons turn to face them with curious looks. Hanamaki must’ve been much louder than he’d thought considering the noise level in a place like this to begin with.

Hanamaki blanches and offers a muttered apology to which Iwaizumi clears his throat, somewhat uncomfortably. He shifts beside Oikawa and if Hanamaki didn’t know any better it nearly looks like Iwaizumi makes to grab for the other’s hand beneath the table. 

“I—I only know what dad’s told me,” Oikawa explains, unusually subdued. “Which isn’t much, but I knew business had been on a decline.”

“They’re spending indiscriminately—that’s the bigger issue. They’re irresponsible and living beyond their means,” Hanamaki snaps. “My father claims Sakunami’s in a downfall.”

“The ryokan is over-priced and outdated,” Iwaizumi says, voice steady and entirely unapologetic. “My family’s restaurant is doing just fine.”

The words are cutting but honest and that’s enough to jolt Hanamaki out of his irrational anger. He slumps a bit sheepishly against the back of the booth. “Sorry—I’m being a total asshole.”

“You’re frustrated, I get it,” Oikawa says, leaning in so that he can speak a bit more intimately. “Have you spoken to Tamiko about it yet?”

Hanamaki shakes his head. “I don’t want to bother her. She’s been so busy at work,” he explains, though he knows he’ll have to have that conversation sooner rather than later. “Has uncle mentioned anything else?”

“Not really, though I think he’d agree with both you and Hajime,” Oikawa hums, eyes dipping away from Hanamaki’s gaze. “Your parents—well, they’re pretty set in their ways.” 

It’s a nice way of putting things, Hanamaki thinks, and he wonders when exactly Oikawa had grown to have more tact that him. 

“Stubborn and snobbish, you mean,” Hanamaki grumbles, though he feels rather more deflated now than anything. “They told me they were thinking of hiring a financial advisor.”

Oikawa perks up. “Well—that’s good, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Hanamaki sighs. “Just never thought I’d be coming home to a crisis like this. All I wanted to do was scrub baths and fold laundry—put my mind on autopilot for a bit, y’know?”

“I get that.” Across the table, Oikawa leans unconsciously into Iwaizumi’s side. “Honestly though Makki, we never really thought you’d leave Tokyo in the first place.”

Hanamaki scratches at a bit of dry skin on his thumb, contemplating. “Really?” he murmurs.

Iwaizumi quirks a brow. “You actually hated it that much?”

“It’s just—the city’s great,” Hanamaki says, trying his best to convey the swirling mass of thought in his head into one, simple explanation. “But, I’m just not sure that’s the lifestyle for me. Salaryman from sunrise to sunset— _past_ sunset usually.” 

“Well, I suppose that tracks,” Oikawa chuckles. “You were never one for tight schedules or the mundanity of routine.” 

Hanamaki smirks. “Unlike _you_ , I guess?”

“Hey, my routine is everything I ever wanted. Volleyball is life.”

“Yep, that tracks too. Still an absolute _dork_.”

At this, Oikawa actually squawks, leaning further into Iwaizumi’s shoulder. “Makki-chan, you’re so rude,” he whines out. “Hajime, _do_ something.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Iwaizumi laughs straight into his ear. “He’s right, isn’t he?”

“Hajime!” 

Oikawa turns then, entirely affronted, and shoves his fist straight into Iwaizumi’s chest. This in turn prompts Iwaizumi to make a grab for his waist, digging tickling fingers into Oikawa’s side. It’s all very predictable, the same sort of dramatic play-fight Hanamaki’s witnessed a hundred times before, except—

“Oh,” Hanamaki stumbles out. “Uh, I didn’t know—I mean, I didn’t realize—”

Oikawa pulls back from where he’d trapped Iwaizumi’s lips in a long, lingering kiss to face their innocent witness with a furious, burgeoning blush. 

The three remain resolutely silent for a moment, perhaps collecting their thoughts or else (in Hanamaki’s case) reigning in any uncouth reactions towards this new revelation.

“Ah, I suppose we should’ve told you sooner,” Iwaizumi says, sheepish but surprisingly pragmatic. “Tooru and I are together. Going on, what now—?”

“A year in February,” Oikawa offers, a soft, genuine smile creeping over his features as he turns back to Iwaizumi. “Time flies, huh?”

Hanamaki feels both entirely like he’s been submerged and slapped straight in the face all at once. Something faint plays over and over in the back of his mind, static and blurred practically beyond recognition—but still, there’s a familiar sense of warm, wet lips and—

“A year,” Hanamaki manages to say. “Wow. How did I not see this coming?”

How, indeed. And also—how unbelievably _unfair_ — 

Oikawa frowns, but it’s rather more like a pout. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Hanamaki clears his throat unceremoniously. “You’ve always been all over each other. Flirting and making heart eyes—all the usual shit.”

“Heart eyes?” Iwaizumi scoffs, though the tips of his ears are starting to turn a remarkable shade of red. 

“Yeah,” Hanamaki says, graceless and blunt as his mind begins to hum. “So uh—does anyone else know?”

If either of his friends can read so far down between the lines to pick at what exactly it is that Hanamaki is getting at, they don’t let on. But still, Oikawa fits him with a look that might’ve come off as patronizing if Hanamaki didn’t know his cousin’s brand of empathy well enough as he does.

“Well—we’ve told our parents,” Oikawa begins slowly. “It wasn’t exactly an easy conversation with mine, but in the end they’ve accepted that we’re together and that—that we love each other.”

Hanamaki pictures his aunt and uncle in his mind’s eye, at the confusion that might have run across his uncle’s features so similar to his father’s own. It’s harder to imagine acceptance there, but Hanamaki thinks bitterly that he can’t picture anything other than his parent’s own disappointment should that situation be their own.

He doesn’t feel jealous, that’s not it exactly—but it’s something foul and sour and Hanamaki wishes his chest wasn’t quite so steeped in such a malicious feeling. He’s not mad, he’s not angry really, but—

“I’m—I’m happy for you guys,” Hanamaki says instead of anything else threatening to bubble up beneath the surface, because that much is at least true. They’re his best friends, after all. 

“Thank you,” Iwaizumi nods and Hanamaki’s not sure he’s ever seen him smile so softly. “It means a lot.”

“Makki, I know things seem rough right now,” Oikawa says, eyes far brighter than before. “But it’ll get better—especially now that you’re back. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. Maybe _you’re_ what can help your parents get back on track.”

Hanamaki lets that idea settle over him for a brief moment, the optimism warm and comforting. But it takes less than a second for reality to come rushing back to him, thinking about all the things he’s had to soak in over the last few days. He’s only been home a week and yet so much has already changed.

He’d like to think Oikawa is right, but he knows in the deepest part of his heart that it just isn’t that simple.

“Yeah, maybe,” Hanamaki agrees anyways because he can’t bring himself to deny Oikawa’s resulting grin.

————— ❀ —————

Later, after the train ride back home leaving Iwaizumi and Oikawa together downtown to do whatever it is they’re planning to do together, Hanamaki takes the long walk back to the ryokan by himself.

Sakunami isn’t a particularly large resort district; a main road along which sits shops and restaurants, the local post office and a myriad of ryokan much the same as his family’s own. It’s all nestled in alongside the Hirose River, surrounded on all sides by dense green forest hills that are a bit more grey now that winter has fully settled herself in.

He could call for a taxi, but despite the light dusting of snow on the ground, the cold isn’t so biting tonight and Hanamaki thinks, even if it was, the fresh air might just do his over-worked mind some good. 

Hanamaki’s booted feet trek along the sidewalk, leaving lonely footprints in his wake. Down past a line of storefronts and a few stalls selling steaming buns and hand-painted kokeshi dolls. The few street-lamps here and there illuminate the walk well enough to avoid a slick patch of ice on the curb and the few pedestrians he walks by offer him no more than a passing nod or else nothing at all. 

Overhead the clouds are dark rolls of cotton hiding away the usual quilt of stars and a few thick lacy snowflakes float gently down, melting against his jacket sleeves and clinging to his lashes, downturned as he watches his footsteps; a soothing, never-ending pattern—right, left, right, left, right—

Hanamaki’s shoulder bumps straight into a solid mass, startling him out of his dreamy state with a gasp and a muffled grunt. 

“Shit,” he hisses out, catching his balance before he can slip straight onto his ass in the fresh fallen snow. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying any attention—” 

Hanamaki glances up to check on the person he’s very nearly collided with, hoping it’s not an old grandmother or anything like that, only to find a tall, broad-shouldered man staring back at him. 

He freezes for a second, the purplish light surrounding them not doing much to reveal the other’s features save for a mop of curly hair and square, dark-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. Hanamaki squints through the shadows, the swirl of snow starting to come down a bit heavier now. He swears his mind’s just playing tricks on him now, until— 

“It’s alright. I wasn’t exactly watching where I was going very well either.”

That voice. 

Hanamaki’s eyes go wide and, perhaps against his best judgement, takes a step forward to look more closely at the taller man before him. His mouth drops open.

“Issei?” he breathes out, wildly unsure if this is actually happening or if he’s fallen asleep on the train and will, at any moment, be rudely awoken from this unbelievably lucid dream.

The man steps forward, directly under the amber glow of the overhead street-lamp, and Hanamaki feels his entire body go aflame.

Matsukawa stares at him, equally shocked but doing a far sight better at reining it in. He’s broader and taller, but save for the glasses and the new chiseled angle to his sharp jaw, he’s just the same as the last time Hanamaki had seen him all those years ago. 

“Hey,” Matsukawa says, so calm and steady that it makes Hanamaki start to tremble even worse.

“Huh,” Hanamaki responds, tongue utterly tied because while Matsukawa hasn’t changed all that much, Hanamaki is starting to realize the longer he stares that along with a few extra centimeters, Matsukawa Issei has grown exponentially more attractive with age. 

“Are you okay?” Matsukawa tries again, thick brows furrowing in concern. 

And oh—that’s really not helping at all.

Hanamaki’s knees feel a bit weak as he forces his eyes away from where he’s been staring for far too long to be appropriate. “I’m yeah—I’m—” he stumbles out, graceless as ever. “You’re here—I mean, what are you doing here?”

Matsukawa shifts, hefts a sleek leather bag further up onto his shoulder. “I might ask you the same question.”

Hanamaki is both impressed and mortified that Matsukawa is even entertaining a conversation here out in the snow with someone as clearly rattled as Hanamaki himself is. Or also with someone that basically left him on read for going on four years—

“I uh—I’m helping at the ryokan,” Hanamaki says, proud that he’s at least managing to string a full, comprehendible sentence together now. “My parents need an extra hand right now.”

Well—that’s at least in the comfortable territory somewhere between a half-lie and the truth.

Matsukawa nods as though everything Hanamaki is saying makes absolute perfect sense. “I just transferred offices,” he offers in his own explanation, but Hanamaki finds himself only half paying attention, brain abuzz. “Actually I’m going there now to drop some paperwork off. There’s this new little dessert shop across the street, maybe we could—”

And that’s the moment Hanamaki’s fight or flight response finally decides to kick in. At Matsukawa’s half spoken offer a tremor of panic courses through him and Hanamaki’s feet shuffle forward.

“Uh, sorry—I’ve actually really got to be going,” he blurts out, edging past Matsukawa and not daring to make another ounce of eye contact. “Maybe some other time?”

Hanamaki’s voice lilts up at the end in an unnatural, nervous way, but if Matsukawa notices his overt distress he does him the kind, chivalrous service of not letting on. 

“Oh, sure,” Matsukawa murmurs, clearly disappointed and Hanamaki has to squeeze his nails hard into his fisted palms to fight the urge to turn back around.

“It was nice to see you,” he hurries out through grit teeth, a blackhole of guilt opening slow but steady somewhere at the center of his ribcage. 

Matsukawa doesn’t say anything for a moment and Hanamaki takes the pause to continue on, boots crunching over the icy fresh layer of snow. He counts each step, four strides in total, before Matsukawa’s deep voice calls after him through the violet glow of winter dusk. 

“I’ll see you around then, Hiro,” Matsukawa says, just loud enough to reach Hanamaki’s ears on a cold tendril of wind. 

He should turn around, should say something more, should _apologize_ —but for what? There’s too many possibilities to count, he thinks.

So instead, like the coward that he has become, Hanamaki walks on back towards home.

Lonelier than he’s ever felt before.

————— ❀ —————

It’s a Thursday evening when Hanamaki’s mother calls him down to the entry hall. 

They’ve had a small run in visitors that week, three occupied rooms, and Hanamaki hasn’t felt busier in a long while. He’s just gotten done serving dinner to a newly married couple in their private bath suite, so he tucks the empty tray under his arm as he makes his way down the hall. 

His father is sitting in one of the lobby’s upholstered armchairs, perpetual glass of whisky in hand, with his mother standing to the side, hair done up in her prettiest hairpins and silk blouse steamed to perfection. 

Hanamaki’s only clue that something strange is about to occur is when he spots Tamiko standing off to the side near the kitchen doorway with an odd, almost concerned look on her usually easygoing features. 

There is another person there too, a man sat across from his father, but all Hanamaki can see is a dark bit of hair at the back of his head.

“Takahiro,” his mother calls again, gesturing him over with quick little waves of her willowy hand. “Come say hello.” 

Hanamaki pads forward, slippered feet sliding over the polished wood floor. He looks up once more to meet Tamiko’s eyes only to find her concern hasn’t dissipated in the slightest. 

Everything clicks solidly into place when their visitor turns slowly to face Hanamaki. 

Once again Matsukawa is there in front of him. No warning, no allotted time to prepare. Just there, staring back at him.

With a jerky movement Matsukawa stands, something unfair about the way his dark suit clings to his broad frame. It’s clearly designer and perfectly tailored; a simple threaded pattern, glistening navy blue, very nearly black. He’s so very handsome with his curls combed back off his forehead, glasses perched over hooded but sharp eyes. He looks as though he’s just come from an exclusive business conference at Tokyo International Forum.

Only—he’s here, in his family’s ryokan in Sakunami.

“You remember Matsukawa Issei, don’t you?” his father says, entirely serious—as if Hanamaki could have ever possibly forgotten him.

Hanamaki swallows, feels as though he’s about the choke on nothing more than old, smudged memories. 

“He’s our new financial advisor,” his mother explains with a smile, entirely pleased. “He’s going to help save the ryokan—isn’t that wonderful?”

Matsukawa’s lips part as if he’s about to speak but this time, for whatever reason, no words manage to make it out.

“That’s—that’s wonderful,” Hanamaki agrees, voice so foreign and faraway to his own ears it’s as though his conscious is trapped inside some invisible bubble watching his corporeal form go along with the motions without him. 

Matsukawa’s mouth snaps shut, eyes searching. 

But Hanamaki can’t bring himself to meet that gaze. 

Things are so very far from wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/hlovelyyy)   
>    
> 


	3. drift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But somehow, like always, Matsukawa seems to just know._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy almost Valentine's Day--sorry for the pain. (Thank you for reading. I love you all, you are the reason I'm still writing matsuhana <3)

“This is entirely _fucked_.”

“ _Makki, watch it—you’re on speaker!_ ” 

“Well then take me _off_.”

“ _I’m in the middle of stretching. I shouldn’t have even picked up, but after the fifth call—_ ”

“This is an _emergency_ , Tooru.”

Hanamaki can hear Oikawa’s exasperated sigh loud and clear even through the echoed background noise of a bustling volleyball gym getting ready for practice. He’s not sure exactly how many times he’d tried calling Oikawa that morning, but he’s pretty sure the other is over exaggerating as he often tends to do—

“ _Wow and you call me the overdramatic one?_ ” Oikawa huffs, voice tinny through their connection. “ _Look, so Mattsun decided to move back home. It’s not unheard of—oh wait, didn’t you just do the very same thing?_ ”

“The issue isn’t him moving back home,” Hanamaki snaps, ignoring Oikawa’s valiant attempt at sarcasm. “The issue is that my parents have hired him to sort through our family finances and are acting like they don’t remember all the nasty things they used to say about him.”

“ _Okay, I can see how that’s frustrating._ ” Oikawa sighs and Hanamaki can pick up the familiar sound of volleyballs slamming against the gymnasium floor. “ _But you can’t honestly tell me it isn’t good to see him again._ ” 

Over the years Hanamaki had determined that somewhere along the line Oikawa and Iwaizumi had learned about what had happened that night in the onsen. To what level of detail, he’s not entirely certain, but it’s reasonable enough to assume they at least know about the kiss.

Hanamaki is certain, however, that Oikawa does not at all know the torrent of conflicting emotions that have burrowed firmly inside Hanamaki’s chest ever since.

So yeah, ‘ _frustrating’_ is really just the tip of the iceberg here. 

“It’s good to see him, I guess,” Hanamaki says because he can’t find it in himself to lie so blatantly. But then the image of Matsukawa’s perfectly handsome face flashes across his mind and Hanamaki very nearly jumps. “Have _you_ seen him recently?”

“ _Hm, in person? The last time would’ve been right before graduation I think—_ ”

“Since when has he looked like _that_?” Hanamaki asks, the words nothing more than an embarrassing string of consciousness pouring unbidden from his mouth now. “And dressed so well—I shit you not he was wearing an Armani suit last night. Armani, can you believe that?”

“ _Well, I think he makes pretty good money, Makki,_ ” Oikawa offers matter-of-factly. 

“Armani money?” Hanamaki presses, brows raising with his increasingly more panicked incredulity. “Right out of university?”

“ _He’s smart, always has been,_ ” Oikawa says. “ _I know he’s already got some investment accounts and he’s had that job lined up for over a year now._ ”

Hanamaki glares at the plain neutral wall of his bedroom, letting his vision focus so hard on a single point that it eventually goes out of focus. Finally, after some time, he huffs, “What is he—some kind of wunderkind?”

“ _Makki, listen to yourself,_ ” Oikawa replies and it sounds a lot like he’s probably smirking. “ _I can’t tell if you’re jealous or lusting after him._ ” 

“Lusting—” Hanamaki practically chokes on the word before swallowing past the offense. “I’m going to have to see him _all the time_ now. He’s going to be at the ryokan, working with my father—I swear my mother looks at him like he’s an idol or something. It’s like she’s blocked the memory of her screaming bloody murder that time we tracked mud all over her new Persian rug when we were ten.”

Among _other_ memories, Hanamaki tacks on his head like some kind of masochist. 

Oikawa hums kind of dreamily. “ _Ah, now that’s a fond memory._ ”

“This whole thing’s a disaster,” Hanamaki continues, starting to feel faintly feverish. “I didn’t think things could get worse, but they’re entirely _fucked_.”

Somewhere down the hall footsteps echo out followed by voices too muffled to be overheard properly. Hanamaki sighs, giving up on his little staring contest and blinking the filmy sensation from his eyes.

“ _Hey now, at least he’s going to help your parents out,_ ” Oikawa says and this time it’s more genuine, gentle even. “ _And if we know one thing for sure, it’s that Mattsun is as reliable as they come._ ”

Hanamaki can’t exactly argue with that, which is somewhat _annoying_ —like the way Matsukawa’s suit coat nipped in perfectly at his trim waist or the way his palms and fingers looked broader and longer adorned with simple platinum bands and a watch to match. But also—

Maybe Oikawa is actually right, at least his parent’s mistakes could still be righted yet. 

On the other line Hanamaki can hear a few voices yelling out and Oikawa shuffling his phone around. “ _Look, I’ve gotta go—but call me later if you need anything else, okay?_ ”

“Okay,” Hanamaki agrees. “Okay, yeah. Thanks, I think this actually helped.”

“ _Why do you sound so surprised—_ ”

Hanamaki just grins, affecting his best sugary-sweet voice. “Bye, Tooru-chan,” he says, cutting Oikawa’s squawk off with a satisfying click. 

_Reliable as they come_ —well, Hanamaki can’t exactly argue with that.

————— ❀ —————

It had always felt strange to Hanamaki—moving back home.

Not that he felt unwelcome—it was still amazing to think that his mother had kept his childhood bedroom fairly in-tact save for a few extra storage boxes stashed in the small closet. So it wasn’t that he felt like an intruder or anything like that. Still, Hanamaki can’t help feeling a little out of place. 

It’s—odd. Hanamaki isn’t that much different since he’d left for university over four years ago, yet being back home has made him realize that maybe he’d actually changed more than he’d once thought.

His room may have been left relatively untouched, but he can’t help feeling like a stranger when he lies awake at night staring up a familiarly unfamiliar ceiling, trying unsuccessfully to adjust to his old, too-soft futon.

When his mother successfully cooks instead of ordering in, the taste is always off in some small way. His father’s cologne burns in his nostrils. Even Tamiko’s presence and playful nature is less comforting that it used to feel. 

But now, undoubtedly, the strangest part of all is having to see Matsukawa Issei in his home on a semi-regular basis.

Matsukawa is there on a Monday, tucked away in his father’s office, and then disappears for days before showing up again on a Thursday morning bearing coffee and a box of sweets from a new shop in town Hanamaki hasn’t had the time or inclination to visit.

He takes the time to compliment Hanamaki’s mother’s meticulously curated outfits even though the designer pieces are likely a large portion of their current financial status. He can hold his own in a conversation with Hanamaki’s father, from sports to business to culture, without ever missing a beat. He engages in Tamiko’s stories about her students and the coworkers she both likes and despises.

On the occasion that he arrives for an appointment in the early evening Matsukawa stays for dinner and compliments the food whether or not it’s come from a seldom used pan hung in the kitchen pantry or a takeout container hidden away in the trashcans outside. 

He is always polite, always punctual, always professional.

He is charming and humorous when necessary, timing always just right. 

He is—

He is still somehow the exact same Matsukawa Issei that Hanamaki remembers from all those years ago. 

While Hanamaki himself sits up at night thinking about just how painfully foreign he feels being back under this stifling roof. 

Hanamaki doesn’t exactly hate having Matsukawa here like he thought he might. Sure, it’s awkward at times, a little stinging cut buried somewhere deep inside of Hanamaki that gets picked at here and there. When he stays for dinner and sits at their dining room table like he’s one of the family and his mother croons over something he’s said—Hanamaki can’t help feeling that cut start to sink in a little bit deeper. 

But for the most part it’s—

“Hey, sorry—” a voice interrupts Hanamaki’s winding thoughts. He’s stood at the industrial kitchen sink scrubbing away at a bit of black burnt on something in the bottom of a pot. So maybe his own cooking skills could use a little work too—if only they had enough money to hire back a proper chef. 

Hanamaki turns his head up to find Matsukawa there, staring at him from the doorway with an oddly guilty look on his face. Does he think he’s interrupted or something? He’s just scrubbing pots and pans—

Oh, Hanamaki had nearly forgotten—his shirt had been splashed so thoroughly with water in his half-daydream state that the thin white material was surely sticking to his skin in—well, _everywhere_ at this point. 

And there Matsukawa stands in another perfectly pressed designer suit, wide eyed and staring.

Wait. _Wide eyed and—_

Hanamaki drops the sponge in his hand, causing another spray of water to spatter the front of his already wet shirt. He moves to cover himself out of instinct, but Matsukawa’s already clearing his throat, dodging his gaze and moving towards the refrigerator in some kind of stifled way.

“Sorry,” he says again, entirely unhelpful.

Hanamaki huffs, embarrassed but also kind of amused. “It’s cool—what’s up?” 

Matsukawa’s head is currently stuck into the refrigerator and Hanamaki has to pointedly not look down at the way he’s bent, at the way those slacks hug his—

“Just getting some water—uh, I didn’t know anybody was in here. Startled myself I guess.” Matsukawa pulls back with a water bottle clutched tightly in his hand, awkward. 

“Oh okay. Yeah,” Hanamaki answers back just as awkwardly.

Behind him, the faucet continues to spill water into the stubbornly stained pot until Hanamaki has the sense to shut it off and just let the thing sit in the sink to soak. He assumes Matsukawa will be on his way, back to the little office he’s since taken up partial residence in, but when Hanamaki turns back around he’s startled once again to find Matsukawa still there, lingering in the doorway. 

“Uh, so,” Matsukawa says and it’s so far from his usual eloquent charm that it very nearly has Hanamaki smirking, shoulders relaxing. “How’ve you been?”

It’s the clumsiest attempt at smalltalk Hanamaki thinks he’s ever been on the receiving end of. Yet somehow, it’s entirely fitting. 

For a second he actually considers answering in the most blatantly honest way, but Hanamaki’s not so certain he’s ready for Matsukawa to witness that side of himself just yet. After all, even if he feels remarkably more comfortable here in Matsukawa’s presence than he thought he might, it’s still been four years of still unexplained silence. 

“I’ve been good,” Hanamaki says, matching the already somewhat clichéd conversation. “Y’know, as good as I can be.” 

Matsukawa’s eyes dip and for a second Hanamaki flushes with the thought that he’s so obviously checking him out, damp shirt and all. But then, after another moment passes, he realizes Matsukawa’s blank look is one of intense thought. 

“I know how hard it can be,” Matsukawa says, his words deeply measured. “Coming home like this.”

Hanamaki frowns. “Like this?”

“To help your parents,” Matsukawa clarifies. 

“I—” Hanamaki catches his tongue, unsure if he wants to divulge the reality of his situation so soon. He hadn’t moved home to help—he’d accidentally stumbled upon a problem and then practically been scolded by his mother when he’d brought things up. 

So instead he says, “Is that what’s brought you home too?” 

Matsukawa inclines his head. The embarrassment from earlier has since melted away, replaced with something far more solemn than Hanamaki had been expecting. “You might’ve heard—my father has papillary thyroid cancer.”

Hanamaki had not heard. 

“I—I’m sorry,” he says, the words slipping from his tongue before he can think of anything better. He isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for anyways—the news itself or having only heard of it now, from Matsukawa’s own trembling lips.

“It’s alright,” Matsukawa replies, toying with the water bottle still clutched in his hand. “I’m actually glad to be back. My mother can take all the help she can get, especially with his surgery coming up. But it’s also been a nice change of pace after having been far away for so long. I’m just lucky there was an office to transfer to in Sendai.”

Hanamaki swallows, slowly digesting the dense amount of knowledge given in such a seemingly simple explanation. “I can understand that,” he nods, because at the root of it he honestly can. 

Matsukawa purses his lips. “You don’t miss Tokyo?”

Once again Hanamaki is torn with just how open he aught to be. Should he confess just how stifling the city had been, how much he craved nights where the stars overhead weren’t entirely overpowered with the glow of neon pollution, how he desperately missed the pungent mineral scent of the onsen, the lush green hills, the quiet neighborhood streets. How much he’d missed—

“It wasn’t exactly for me, y’know?” Hanamaki says, hoping silently that Matsukawa doesn’t pick up on the little tremble in his constricting throat.

How much he’d missed—

“Yeah—yeah, I do know,” Matsukawa says, looking Hanamaki right in the eye as though he can read every last bit of him, straight down to the core. 

And maybe he can, maybe he always could. Maybe—

Hanamaki looks away, anywhere but at Matsukawa. The floor beneath their feet is still the same plain tile it always had been, a bit worn with age; it’s probably one of the only things his mother hasn’t changed about the ryokan in all the time that he’s been alive.

He thinks, arbitrarily, that he might like this tile floor the best out of everything else. 

“I have to get back to work, but—” Matsukawa’s voice is soft as it interrupts Hanamaki’s spiraling thoughts. “Maybe we can catch up more later?”

It sounds so hopefully optimistic, so gently coaxing, so openly forgiving that Hanamaki can’t find it in him to say no.

“I’d like that,” Hanamaki says and this time he manages to keep his tone steady. 

It’s the first entirely honest thing he’s said this evening.

Matsukawa gives him a smile, broad and handsome, and it’s enough to have Hanamaki relaxing back until he’s leaning against the kitchen sink, entirely uncaring of the new dampness soaking into his shirt. Then Matsukawa turns to leave and Hanamaki breathes out, thinking—

How much he’d missed—

————— ❀ —————

Even though Tamiko has a small apartment of her own, one close to work and only a mile north of the ryokan, Hanamaki swears she ends up only _sleeping_ there most days. 

He’d asked her once why she’d chosen to move out, but Tamiko had just given the most pointed of all looks and it was enough explanation for Hanamaki. It’d been a silly question to begin with, he thinks.

“The problem is, mom and dad have never wanted to ask for help,” Tamiko says before leaning over a full bowl of steaming oden. 

Hanamaki frowns across the table. “They don’t seem to have a problem asking for _our_ help.”

“That’s different,” she responds before pursing her lips out to blow on a piece of stewed daikon. 

“Why are you defending them?” Hanamaki asks, trying to keep his voice calm even as he can feel something simmering in his chest. “We’re stuck doing the job of an entire staff—they lied to me about Yamazaki-san taking vacation.” 

Tamiko swallows before looking up at him with something rather resigned in her eyes. “I know it’s frustrating, but remember that the ryokan doesn’t only belong to them.” 

“I’ve never been made to feel like I have any stake in it at all,” he counters with enough edge that the words come out more bitterly than he’d intended. 

“Never?” Tamiko says, like maybe she knows something he doesn’t. “Look, I know your relationship with mom and dad has been sometimes strained over the years—but I want you to know how much I appreciate you coming back to help.”

Hanamaki can’t help rolling his eyes, fumbling with his chopsticks. “You make me sound so altruistic when in all actuality I’m just being selfish.”

“I think you should be—selfish, I mean.” Tamiko pauses then, staring firmly at Hanamaki until he looks up to meet her serious gaze. “You deserve to make your own choices in life, Takahiro.”

The scent of soy sauce and fishcakes linger humidly in the air between them, but Hanamaki can’t bring himself to eat—his stomach so wrapped up in knots that his appetite has all but disappeared. 

“I just hope I haven’t totally screwed myself over,” he mutters after a few beats, staring down at the wooden table just so he won’t have to witness his sister’s reaction to that.

The little apartment is mostly quiet then save for the refrigerator hum and occasional slurp of broth. Outside, a motorbike wizzes past, a car horn sounding loudly in return. Slowly Hanamaki eats, so as not to be rude, but he doesn’t taste much of anything at all.

“Can I be honest with you?” Tamiko asks after some time. However, predictably, she doesn’t actually wait for his response. “Ever since you’ve been back, even though things have been stressful lately, I’ve noticed a change. You seem happier.”

Hanamaki blinks up at her, mouth popping open in genuine surprise. “Really?” 

“Really,” she affirms, expression resolute. “I’m pretty good at reading between the lines.”

Hanamaki squints, trying his hand at reading between his sister’s own lines. “Is this how you talk to your students?” 

“Sometimes,” Tamiko smirks. “Look, mom and dad are just going to have to get used to things as they are now—then pretty soon the ryokan will be back to it’s former smooth operation and you won’t have to play waiter, housekeeper, and cook.” 

“I’m getting awfully good at it, maybe this is my ideal career path after all.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” 

“No, I guess not.”

“Have you given anymore thought about—”

Hanamaki suddenly freezes up, fingers trembling around his chopsticks. “I don’t really wanna talk about this anymore, if that’s okay,” he says, voice even and neutral.

Tamiko watches him closely, but doesn’t press. “Of course that’s okay,” she nods. “What should we talk about instead? Hmm, you-know-who was asking after you today—I think you were at the market when he stopped by for a few minutes.”

The panic stops almost immediately, only to be replaced with a warm flush, entirely unbidden.

“Ugh—I _don't_ want to talk about that either,” Hanamaki groans, but the distress is far less serious than a moment before.

“Okay, okay.” Tamiko grins, a knowing look in her eyes, but she’s kind enough to not press here either. “Let’s find a movie to watch, yeah?”

Hanamaki smiles back, tucking all those errant thoughts and half-spoken conversations firmly away. “Yeah,” he agrees.

————— ❀ —————

It takes a bit of time, but Hanamaki moves past the feelings of underlying embarrassment that Matsukawa has been employed by his family to deal with their financial troubles. Really Hanamaki has just decided not to bring things up, not to discuss the matter at hand at all when he’s around Matsukawa.

And that seems to be doing a tremendous job of easing him back into a life with Matsukawa Issei firmly placed in it. 

Since the start of his employment, Matsukawa’s schedule seems to have leveled out. Hanamaki runs into him less and less frequently at the ryokan, which makes sense in the longterm but also unlocks something inside of Hanamaki—something a little bit like longing.

Still—even if he doesn’t see Matsukawa on such a regular basis, their unofficial promise from the kitchen isn’t so easily forgotten.

Hanamaki’s just finished up a scrub down of the men’s bathing room, looking forward to taking a nice hot shower and maybe crawling into bed early when he nearly runs head long into Matsukawa exiting his father’s office. An increasingly common occurrence. 

“Hey, sorry,” Hanamaki mutters out, though he feels exponentially less awkward than he had since that first night after stumbling upon Matsukawa’s suited frame in the entry hall.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Matsukawa chuckles out, charismatic as ever, and Hanamaki audibly gulps.

His attire is slightly more casual this evening—shirt still pressed crisp, but no suit jacketor tie and the top buttons have been loosened to reveal a satisfying amount of collarbone and skin. Hanamaki himself is still in an old pair of joggers, probably sweaty from his cleaning, and he thinks that maybe there’s a metaphor here somewhere.

“You’re here later than usual,” Hanamaki says instead of anything remotely flirtatious to match Matsukawa’s charm.

“Had to drop off a few papers for your father to sign,” Matsukawa explains, glancing back at the closed door where the man in question must still be. He takes a step or two closer to Hanamaki, dipping in to whisper conspiratorially. “He’s remarkably old fashioned—insists on doing business in person.”

“Yeah well—you know how traditional my parents are,” Hanamaki mutters back, immediately freezing as the words echo back to register in his own head. He’d cringe, but that might give himself away and so far Matsukawa hasn’t picked up on anything amiss.

Matsukawa hums in noncommittal understanding. “What are you up to?” 

Hanamaki shrugs, taking an unconscious step backwards to allow more space between them. “Just finished up some chores.”

Matsukawa hums again and Hanamaki realizes belatedly that he actually looks more nervous now than he’d first noticed. They stand there for a moment, treading in the swill of a silence turned awkward.

Then, apropos of nothing, Matsukawa perks up. “Have you eaten?” 

Hanamaki thinks of the leftover katsu he’d had hours earlier and realizes he’s really not had a proper dinner at all. “Uh, no,” he replies haltingly before all the puzzle pieces can quite fall into place.

But then Matsukawa grins and things click for Hanamaki just a bit too late. “Wanna go get something?” he asks, looking genuinely pleased at the idea.

Hanamaki’s mind flashes over with images of candlelit tables, plum wine, and too-small portions. This time he actually does cringe.

“I’m not exactly dressed for dinner,” Hanamaki says lamely, glancing down at his grungy attire. The words sound so silly to his own ears, nothing more than a petulant mumble, so he can only imagine what they sound like to Matsukawa. 

But, for some amazingly unknown reason, Matsukawa just gives him the most sheepish laugh in return. “Honestly I was thinking about just grabbing some ramen from Lawson,” he explains, rubbing at the back of his neck in such a way that Hanamaki, despite everything, can’t help but feel endeared. 

“Oh,” Hanamaki blurts, eyes surely rounding with the realization. He swallows back the sudden bit of excitement that bubbles up in his stomach. “Uh, okay then. Just let me get my coat.”

Hanamaki turns with a jolt to skitter down the hall before he can talk himself out of it.

He grabs a baseball cap and the first coat he can find, a well-loved work jacket, khaki with a warm sherpa lining. He thinks about checking his appearance in the mirror, but decides against it. After all, that’s something only a person going on a date would do—right?

Right.

Hanamaki skids back out into the hall only to find Matsukawa grinning at him with an indecipherable look—something close to affection, but he can’t be sure. To hide the heat he can feel rushing up to his ears, Hanamaki tugs the cap over his messy hair and trudges on down the hall past Matsukawa towards where their shoes have been left in the genkan.

“I don’t remember the last time I ate a konbini dinner,” Hanamaki says absently, fumbling with the laces of his dark boots.

Matsukawa smiles something soft and thoughtful. “That’s probably a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Honestly I’m way more excited for this than any meal I’ve had since being back home,” Hanamaki answers, much more honestly than he’d expected himself to. But when Matsukawa’s smile turns to a roguish smirk, Hanamaki can’t help but to think it was just the right thing to say after all. 

Outside, once they make it down off the wooden overhang porch, it’s snowing. 

It’s a wet snow, each flake swirling down around them like a swarm of white satin moths, thick and melty. The ground is cold enough with the remnants of the previous snowfall and the hard grip of winter that a new layer of slippery white is already building up down the street.

“I’ve missed this,” Matsukawa says, words a puff of warm fog through the indigo night.

Hanamaki watches his feet shuffle over the narrow walk, careful to avoid anything too slick. “Doesn’t Hokkaido get like fifty centimeters of snow over night?”

“Yeah,” Matsukawa replies. “But this is different. I don’t really know how to describe it—but it just is.”

Weirdly (or perhaps not weirdly at all) Hanamaki can understand exactly what it is that he means.

“I get that,” Hanamaki answers, just as honest as before. Then, after a second’s thought, adds, “But I certainly don’t miss sweeping it.”

Matsukawa lets out a deep, reverberant laugh. “No, I suppose I don’t miss that either,” he agrees and when Hanamaki turns to look he finds Matsukawa watching him with a warm half-lidded gaze, flakes of snow caught against the dark frame of his glasses. 

Hanamaki looks away as quickly as he can without making his fluster obvious. 

They walk on then, down the street past the ryokan’s property, beneath the shadows of barren skeletal trees and dim street-lamps, onward to a place at once so familiar but also nearly intangible, like a half-remembered dream. 

The neon blue glow of the convenience store’s sign cuts through the snow flurry darkness, a beacon. Hanamaki can’t help but feel silly, even as he takes a moment to admire the small picture of mundane beauty. 

_But this is different_ , Matsukawa’s voice repeats inside his head and Hanamaki thinks, even though there’d been hundreds of Lawson at his fingertips in Tokyo, this is different too.

The store clerk greets them politely as they step through the sliding doors, a burst of cold air licking at their heels. They’re the only customers in the small store, the warm hum of refrigerators nearly the only background noise as Matsukawa guides them towards the shelves piled high with various bowls and cups, flavors and brands.

Hanamaki watches Matsukawa study the selection like some kind of connoisseur, snow melted into the thick wool of his overcoat, before he plucks a Super Cup Tonkotsu off the shelf and hands it over to Hanamaki with zero hesitation.

“Am I that predictable?” Hanamaki mumbles, eyes glued to the bright green cup as he reaches for Matsukawa’s offering. 

“It’s not a bad thing to be predictable,” Matsukawa says, grabbing his own choice in ramen—spicy tantanmen. “You’re a creature of habit.”

“And you remember my habits exactly then?” Hanamaki shoots back, unsure of why he feels so suddenly exposed. But he can’t actually find it in himself to actually be annoyed, his petulance nothing more than an instinctual reaction at most. “Maybe I’ve changed since high school—maybe my palate’s been refined.”

Matsukawa turns to him, expression entirely blank and Hanamaki feels stuck still beneath the store’s fluorescent lights by that familiar, intense gaze. 

“Would you rather something else then?” Matsukawa asks honestly and Hanamaki is almost certain he can see the edge of his mouth twitching with the need to smirk.

Hanamaki feels squirmy beneath that look, but not exactly in a bad way like he might’ve thought. “Well—no,” he answers after a beat, and that truth is perhaps the most embarrassing part of it all.

But, graciously, Matsukawa doesn’t seek to comment on it. “Okay,” he says instead and heads towards the drink aisle. 

After a moment’s hesitation to replay these events over in his head, Hanamaki follows after him feeling like some kind of uncoordinated puppy.

They pick drinks from the fridge, green tea and peach water, before meandering towards the cashier. After paying for their meals (separate checks, much to Hanamaki’s relief) and steeping their ramen of choice from the hot pump-kettles near the fried chicken display, they find a spot at the meager counter at the store’s front window instead of braving the snowy curb outside. 

Hanamaki mulls over all the lame ways to start up conversation, any bit of small talk to fill the silence between noodle slurps. He thinks about asking after Matsukawa’s father maybe, or his new office, or if Oikawa calls to pester him as much as he does Hanamaki. In the end though, he realizes it’s not the quiet that’s making him nervous but something else altogether that he hasn’t found the remedy to just yet. 

Matsukawa sits comfortably on the stool beside him, the steam from his ramen occasionally fogging up the lenses of the glasses he’d not had before when they’d sat at this very same counter together so many years ago. So Hanamaki takes Matsukawa’s cues, digging into his own food with as little self-consciousness as he can manage. 

It’s comforting—almost. 

They continue on like that, eating in a silence that’s far less heavy than it has any right to be. Once their chopsticks are laid to rest in their empty paper cups and their drinks mostly drunk, Hanamaki starts to wonder if they’re going to even talk at all. 

But then Matsukawa turns to him. 

“Do you still paint?” he asks, no pressure behind his voice, nothing at all but soft curiosity; a remembrance of the past brought to focus like a light bulb flickering back to life.

Hanamaki opens his mouth, but nothing at all, not even a sound makes it out.

Matsukawa does not push, does not repeat. He just sits, patiently waiting. 

There is no way Hanamaki could have predicted that to be the first thing out of Matsukawa’s mouth once he had him alone and in a comfortable enough position to get more than a few stumbling words in. 

Yet somehow—after he thinks about it, _really_ thinks it over, that doesn’t surprise him in the least. 

“I uh—” Hanamaki says, nothing if not eloquent. “Not for a while, no.”

“Oh,” Matsukawa answers and he seems inordinately stunned by the news.“Why not?”

Now Hanamaki feels a bit more hesitant, unsure if he can really reveal all the emotions that have been swelling inside of him for so long. But it’s not just that, not just Matsukawa and himself being here now in this liminal space reserved only in Hanamaki’s memories—but it’s that, it’s the question itself.

A question that’s become a curdled little entity trying desperately to survive in the recesses of Hanamaki’s mind. One he doesn’t know at all how to answer—to himself or to Matsukawa alike. 

“I mean, I _did_ —at school,” Hanamaki explains, that vulnerable feeling from earlier resurfacing fast. “I was able to minor in art alongside my business degree. But, I haven’t painted like _for fun_ in—I don’t really remember.” 

“I didn’t know you were able to take art classes,” Matsukawa says and his smile is so warm that Hanamaki has to look away. “That’s great.”

“It took some convincing,” Hanamaki mutters, stomach twisting up at how genuinely happy the news seems to make Matsukawa. “Not really sure what I’ll even do with it anyways. Probably a waste—”

“Don’t say that,” Matsukawa interrupts sharply before melting back into that even, level warmth. “Hiro, I’m really proud of you.”

Hanamaki’s stomach lurches this time as he stares into the golden residue clinging to the edges of his empty ramen cup. He doesn’t know why exactly he feels so annoyed by Matsukawa’s praising, why the words make him want to crawl right out of his own skin. His eyes feel so heavy, too heavy to lift even the few inches up from the counter to meet Matsukawa’s gaze.

“Why are you acting like that?” Hanamaki asks, the words a slow but steady leak from his brain like a pipe’s been cracked somewhere. 

In his hazy peripheral, Matsukawa frowns. “Like what?”

“Like—so _nice_ ,” Hanamaki snaps back, voice sounding foreign to his own ears. “I don’t really think I deserve—I mean, after everything that happened.”

The words linger in the air between them, a woven tapestry of self-deprecation that Hanamaki feels immediately mortified by. He’d not meant to say that—he’d not meant to say that _out loud_. Hanamaki sucks in a breath, lungs rattling.

“I think, no matter what, you deserve kindness,” Matsukawa says, sounding entirely unaffected by Hanamaki’s outburst. “I think you need it actually.”

“I think,” Hanamaki turns to him, cheeks hot. “You don’t know what I need at all.”

Matsukawa just watches him, steady and still unfazed. If he’s offended by Hanamaki’s bitter attitude he doesn’t let it show. If he can read between the lines, if he can understand just what it is that Hanamaki’s getting at, he doesn’t let that show either.

Instead he just asks, “Why is it really that you don’t paint anymore?”

Hanamaki swallows, tongue dry and sour. He feels a faint sensation of regret, or guilt, but it’s so minimal that Hanamaki wonders if it’s not just a figment of his desperate conscience. 

“I’m busy, Issei,” he answers bluntly. “You of all people should know that.”

Matsukawa nods, but it’s not in agreement exactly. “Too busy for something you love to do?” 

“Issei, stop,” Hanamaki throws back and this time instead of harshness, the words are mostly coated in some kind of washed-out sadness. “I know you think you know me but—but, you don’t. So just stop, okay?”

Hanamaki thinks he does feel guilty now. But also—mostly just tired. 

“Okay,” Matsukawa says, soft but not hurt. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t—” Hanamaki sputters, feeling like he’s being ripped down the middle. His eyes itch but he blinks it away. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”

“You’re under a lot of stress right now,” Matsukawa offers, far too accommodating even it is is the truth. 

“Yeah,” Hanamaki mumbles out because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

Matsukawa, like usual, seems to know just when to change the subject. “Come on,” he says, standing to shrug back into his coat where he’d hung it off the back of his stool. “I’ll walk you back.”

And Hanamaki—he feels like a coward, but he just nods and follows through with the motions.

The snow’s mostly let up by the time they make it back to the ryokan, but the temperature’s dropped with the full onset of inky nighttime and Hanamaki shivers even with Matsukawa’s warm, solid body right next to him.

“Issei?” Hanamaki says, staring at the intricate wood grain of the inn’s front door until his eyes blur over with the chill.

Matsukawa stops from where he’s turned to take his leave. “Hm?”

Hanamaki looks up, looks at all the ways Matsukawa has changed over the years, but it’s not enough to quite erase the image of that eighteen year old version of himself, so open and vulnerable and willing to take Hanamaki into his arms, to hold him close. 

Hanamaki shivers again, this time not from the cold. “Thanks,” he says, not entirely sure why.

But somehow, like always, Matsukawa seems to just _know_.

“You’re welcome, Hiro,” he replies before turning and shuffling through the fresh layer of snow Hanamaki will have to sweep in the morning. 

Maybe, in the end, Matsukawa does know what it is he needs after all.

————— ❀ —————

Hanamaki takes the next few days to mull things over.

He doesn’t see Matsukawa during this time, but he’s thankful for the reprieve to gather his thoughts in somewhat of a controlled environment. 

The fact that he’s missed Matsukawa over the years is not up for debate. It’s a truth he can at least acknowledge in the inner depths of his conscious, so maybe that’s why it’s been so difficult being dropped straight into the deep end upon Matsukawa’s unannounced return. 

(Hanamaki thinks too, sometimes, about the inverse. About how maybe Matsukawa is feeling the same way, the same slap-in-the-face agitation upon realizing Hanamaki was back and living under the same roof of his most recent clients.) 

So—Hanamaki mulls.

And if he smuggles a bottle of his father’s overpriced sake into his bedroom late at night, no one needs to be the wiser. 

During these times, hazy and warm from the alcohol, Hanamaki sometimes imagines if he were to sit his parents down and lay things out for them in plain black and white. The cold hard truth, no room for discussion or argument or disappointed looks—but then of course, Hanamaki himself would need to be absolutely confident in his own assessment that he wouldn’t try to talk himself out of things. To make up excuses, to choke those feelings down beneath gulps of sharp rice wine.

As it turns out, mulling things over isn’t exactly going as smoothly as Hanamaki might’ve thought.

“Takahiro,” his mother calls from the kitchen. He knows that’s where she is because Hanamaki’s busied himself for the last fifteen minutes staring into the intricate inky void of the antique silk tapestry hung near the front entry desk. 

He blinks himself from the depths, shuffling over towards his mother’s voice. She’s in the midst of boiling something in a gigantic stainless steel pot that Hanamaki immediately dreads having to clean later. The air is moist and thick with an aroma he most closely associates with dashi, so he thinks he can safely assume she’s making some kind of stock.

“Yes?” he says upon entry, holding back a startled hum as he regards his mother in a set of simple loungewear with her hair tied up, loose strands curling around her forehead with the steam. 

Hanamaki takes another deep breath in and decides that, all things considered, the stock doesn’t smell half-bad at all. 

“Now, don’t get angry with me,” his mother says, her least confrontational way of starting a conversation Hanamaki automatically knows he doesn’t want to be a part of. “But I’ve set you up on a date.” 

He would groan, but he’s sure that’d do nothing other than give her ammunition to tell him he aught to act more mature or some other bullshit like that. 

So instead, Hanamaki just leans his hip against the counter and crosses his arms in a mostly neutral form of protest. “May I ask _why?_ ”

His mother side eyes him, grabbing a big wooden spoon and giving her pot a good couple of deep stirs. “Takahiro, do you know what an inane question is?”

This time Hanamaki does groan, just a small one that he disguises with an audible clear of his throat. When his mother turns back to her pot he allows his eyes to roll heavily towards the ceiling. “Fine then,” he mutters out. “Then _who_ did you set me up with?”

It’s no secret that his mother craves an expansion to their immediate family. She’s never overtly spoken of grandchildren (yet) but Hanamaki knows she pesters Tamiko about settling down just as much as she questions Hanamaki’s frequent lack of interest in dating, well— _anyone_. He’d tried to in university a couple of times and his mother had set him up before, years ago now, but no girl had ever sparked anything at all inside of him.

Go figure.

“She’s lovely,” his mother says, unsurprisingly not picking up an any of his cues. “Do you remember the Maedas?”

Hanamaki nods absently. He has a vague memory of a couple that might’ve joined in on his parent’s frequent get-togethers. They’d had a daughter around his age, a year younger he thinks. She’d been on the volleyball team in high school, the only possible reason Hanamaki might remember her at all. Perhaps that’s why his mother picked her out all the potential matches in her perpetual rolodex. Or maybe—

“Their daughter, Haruko,” his mother continues on, settling a lid over her pot to simmer. “She’s their only inheritor.”

It’s an odd way of introducing a person, but sadly Hanamaki isn’t phased in the slightest. His mother is nothing if not predictable—of course she wouldn’t have chosen Haruko because of their potential shared interests, but for the one and only reason that she seems to think matters in this world anymore. 

Hanamaki’s jaw clenches, teeth grinding uncomfortably. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“What?” When she turns, her thin brows are furrowed. “She’s lovely, like I mentioned. She works as a bank teller, but seems like she’d be a wonderful homemaker.” 

Hanamaki swallows, the taste in his mouth foul and acrid. He remembers now that Maeda-san manages the local bank branch, the one his parents had used all their lives. He wonders if Maeda-san knows all the gritty details of their financial troubles yet. But if he did, would he have so willingly set up his daughter? 

“A homemaker,” Hanamaki parrots, the word nothing but ash on his tongue.

His mother nods, not at all reading into his disgust. “Anyways—take her to _Dodan-no-sato_. Friday night, seven o’clock.” 

It’s like nothing more than an appointment, the way the words fall so carelessly from her lips. 

Suddenly the thick, cloying scent of dashi broth is making Hanamaki’s stomach roil. 

“Fine,” he grits out, not in the right state of mind to even attempt arguing. “Anything else?”

His bitter tone seems to finally catch his mother’s attention, her head tilting back to regard him with obvious curiosity. “Actually yes,” she says after a beat of contemplation. “Do you happen to know if Matsukawa-san is seeing anyone?”

Hanamaki freezes, halfway out the kitchen door already. The question rings back through his ears, higher and higher in pitch until he’s hearing nothing more than a constant, piercing buzz throbbing against his ear drums.

“Not a clue,” he says, or at least he thinks he says considering he can’t even hear himself speaking out loud. Hanamaki doesn’t wait for any kind of reply, escaping back out into the lobby on wobbly legs.

He feels rather like he’s been simultaneously scalded by boiling water and drenched in an ice bath, entirely submerged until his lungs cave in.

Hanamaki forces himself to breath—in, out, in, out, _in, out_ —

He shuffles to his bedroom and closes the door.

He doesn’t think about anything at all, save the buzzing in his head, for the rest of the night.

————— ❀ —————

On Friday evening, like the obedient son that he is, Hanamaki takes Maeda Haruko to the quaint little soba restaurant down the street from the ryokan. 

His mother had at least been correct in one assessment: Haruko is quite lovely. Dark hair just long enough to stay curled behind her ears from which drip more delicate silver jewelry than Hanamaki might have anticipated from his vague memory of her back in high school. Though he supposes he’s probably changed some too over the years and then consequently decides Haruko probably doesn’t remember him at all anyways. 

He orders kitsune soba and Haruko matches him with a shy smile, but he can tell by her overt politeness and neutral demeanor that she too has been coerced into this little match-make—so Hanamaki lets his shoulders slump a bit against the wooden booth, all pretenses quickly flying out the adjacent window. 

They chat amicably about non-important things; volleyball and university, a few childhood memories and a short discussion on the trivialities of adulthood. Hanamaki can’t say he doesn’t find the conversation stimulating, amusing, easy. He can’t say he doesn’t find Haruko charming, friendly, just the right shade of soft-spoken. But he also can’t say—

He also can’t say he’d be able to see her as anything more than this—a casual friend to slurp soba with on a chilly Friday night.

“I don’t mean to be blunt,” Haruko says on the short walk up the road to where she’d left her family’s kei car at the ryokan. “But I’d rather not ruin a new friendship by pushing for anything further.” 

The way she speaks is so eloquent, that if Hanamaki had actually been thinking any differently he’s not sure he’d even manage to feel disgruntled by the disappointment. But, as it is, he can’t help but gratefully agree. 

“I—my mother is overbearing sometimes,” he’s quick to explain. “I’m sorry if you felt in any way coerced.”

“Not at all,” she hums back. “I can understand those types of mothers anyways. But—if I can be perfectly honest with you, I’m already sort of seeing someone else. I just haven’t had the courage to let my parents down easy yet.”

Hanamaki can’t be sure, but he thinks there’s the smallest glint in Haruko's gaze when she turns to him with a very pointed look. Pointed almost as though she _knows_ —but also, perhaps more importantly, as though she _understands_.

Hanamaki swallows. “I won’t tell,” he says with a soft smile. “I’ll make up some excuse—I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years.”

“Thank you,” Haruko nods just as they’ve arrived at her car. “And thank you for dinner. Even if things can’t work out, it was fun to get to know you better. Honestly what I remember most from high school is you and your friend giving Oikawa Tooru a hard time.”

Hanamaki pauses at that. _You and your friend_ —it floats through his ears, soaking into his brain slow enough that by the time things register, Haruko is at least looking back towards the ryokan and not witnessing the sudden heat rising on Hanamaki’s cheeks.

_She means Matsukawa_ , he thinks—he _knows_. Hanamaki isn’t so sure why her little, meaningless memory seems suddenly so monumental inside his own headspace. 

Probably because Matsukawa, and any notion of him however small, has become an automatic hair-trigger in his subconscious as of late. A volleyball match playing on the communal television— _Matsukawa_. Leftover pork gyoza in the kitchen— _Matsukawa_. The papers strewn about his father’s office— _Matsukawa_. 

The aching, inherent need for a body pressed close and warm to his on a cold, dark night— _Matsukawa_.

“Anyways, I should be going,” Haruko says, pulling him out of the dangerous hazy memory with a gentle voice. 

Hanamaki blinks, warmth invading his cheeks at having pretty much been caught. But, once again, Haruko doesn’t look in any way judgmental if not a little bit commiserating. He clears his throat, plucking up the collar of his jacket to hide any bit of color creeping down his neck. “I’ll see you around,” he offers with a thankful smile.

Haruko agrees and then turns to the tiny driver’s side door. Hanamaki stays there for a while, watching the red taillights disappear down the road through the thick winter darkness. He breathes in deeply, the rich lingering scent of Sakunami’s onsen far more comforting than he’d ever thought before. 

Once his nose starts to tingle with the cold, Hanamaki turns to walk back up the front steps, meandering around the craggy branch of an old, black pine. The interior warmth wraps him up immediately as he toes off his shoes, shuffling into a pair of slippers that have seen far better days. 

He’s just about the turn down the hall towards his room, hoping to avoid any nosy questions from his mother, when a familiar pair of dark eyes catch him as they turn the corner from the entry hall.

_We have to stop meeting like this_ , Matsukawa’s voice echoes inside of Hanamaki’s head and if he were feeling any way other than startled, he might even laugh at the continued irony.

“Oh,” Matsukawa says, perhaps just as startled as Hanamaki himself.

“Hey,” Hanamaki greets as neutrally as he can manage. “Working late again?”

“Uh, actually,” Matsukawa hesitates, stepping down the corridor closer so his low, velvet voice carries just that much better to Hanamaki’s ears. “Your parents invited me for dinner and drinks. _Insisted_ , more like it.”

He doesn’t sound particularly angry, but certainly a little helplessly annoyed. Hanamaki can understand the sentiment, especially when dealing with his parents. 

“That’s—nice,” Hanamaki answers stiltedly. He can’t really imagine it, Matsukawa sitting at their traditional low table with his parents—alone.

Matsukawa frowns, not unhappy but perhaps almost self-conscious. “Tamiko was here and well—your mother seemed adamant.”

At that Hanamaki’s vision narrows beneath a furrowed brow. “That’s weird,” he says, totally uninhabited but it’s maybe the most honest he’s been with Matsukawa in a long while.

“I—yeah,” Matsukawa agrees, looking a little bit like there’s something left unsaid clinging to his lips. “Sorry, but I should get going.”

Hanamaki stutters back a step, allowing Matsukawa to pass with his head down. It’s not as though they’re back to how things used to be between them before, but Hanamaki had thought they’d at least been making some progress. But now, with the awkward air threatening to swallow them whole, Hanamaki can’t stop the flutter of familiar anxious nerves.

“Oh yeah,” he nods, feeling tongue tied. “Uh, see you.”

Matsukawa at least graces him with a medium watt smile before ducking out the front door, “See you,” he says and then he’s gone, almost as if something were chasing at his heels. 

Hanamaki’s stomach feels unsettled, something doubtful burrowing in underneath his skin. Any bit of relaxed comfort he’d gained from his non-date with Haruko has now dissipated, replaced once again by agitation. 

He shuffles down the hall, only to stop frozen-still when he overhears his mother’s voice from the dining room. 

“He’s really quite handsome,” she says, a tone of excitement lacing with her hushed words. “ _And_ successful.” 

Hanamaki’s gut clenches up, a sudden feeling of nausea starting to creep in fast. His face feels hot, feverish almost and, when he looks down, he realizes his hands are shaking uncontrollably at his sides.

“He’s a respectful young man, good head on his shoulders,” his father adds then and for a minute Hanamaki thinks they’re just discussing things the two of them. 

But then—

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Tamiko hisses out, voice just as hushed as though somehow they all know that Hanamaki is losing his grip on the other side of the thin, shoji wall. “And while I agree that he’s great, I’m not interested in dating right now. Like I’ve said—countless times before.” 

They’re talking about Matsukawa.

They’re talking about Matsukawa—like Hanamaki hasn’t been on the receiving end of so many distrustful, disappointed looks from his mother. Like he hasn’t sat through lecture after lecture back in high school on all the reasons why he shouldn’t be hanging out with _boys like that_. Like he hasn’t—

_That’s alright. These things happen. Just an accident. Didn’t I always warn you about bad influences?_

But now—now that things are different he supposes they can all just pretend like Hanamaki’s parents hadn’t looked down their noses at someone like Matsukawa Issei. Because now he’s handsome, he’s successful, he’s respectful, he’s—

But, Hanamaki realizes, he’d always thought that way about Matsukawa. Always.

And—he still does. 

Hanamaki turns on his heel, legs wobbly and muscles tense. 

It takes him many hours to fall asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/hlovelyyy)   
>    
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